SAMUEL W M^CALL 

Governor of Massachusetts 
BY LAWRENCE B. EVANS -^ 




Qass. 
Book. 



SAMUEL W. McCALL 

GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS 




Cift't^hi h> HaJ:r.,.h 



SAMILI. \V. MlCAI.L 



SAMUEL W. McCALL 

GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS 



BY 



LAWRKNXE B. E;VANS 

OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAR 



JTith Illustrations 




HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
BOSTON AND NEW YORK I916 



COPYRIGHT, I916, BY LAWRENCE B. EVANS 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published Af'ril iQid 






PREFACE 

THE notable career of Mr. McCall, extend- 
ing over more than a generation, is a sufficient 
excuse for this biography. As a member of Con- 
gress he was a participant in several of the most 
important discussions of questions of govern- 
mental policv which have ever occurred in our 
history, and his utterances, both spoken and 
written, were based upon such extensive knowl- 
edge and were characterized by such logic of 
thought and fitness of literary expression as will 
insure them a high place in our political litera- 
ture. In the preparation of this book I have 
made large use of them and have embodied nu- 
merous extracts from them in the narrative. 

It is a distinguishing feature of Mr. McCall's 
speeches in Congress that for the most part they 
deal with subjects of permanent importance and 
continuing interest. No public man of the pres- 
ent generation has been more earnest in his de- 
fense of the principle of our system of distributed 
power. On the one hand he stands for the largest 
measure of individual freedom, and against that 
undue centralization of governmental power at a 
single point which is so destructive of freedom ; 
but on the other hand, in his liberal interpreta- 

V 



Preface 

tion of the power of the Federal Government 
and in his opposition to measures which would 
hamper it in the execution of the functions which 
have been committed to it he belongs to the 
school of Marshall. When economic and social 
conditions in the country so change as to make 
alterations in the fundamental law advisable, he 
is ready to meet the new situation, as was shown 
by his introduction of an amendment to the Con- 
stitution empowering Congress to enact laws pro- 
viding for uniform hours of labor. 

In reproducing extracts from the " Congres- 
sional Record " I have been in some doubt as to 
whether I ought to retain the reporter's indica- 
tions of "Laughter" and "Applause." Since, 
however, it was not Governor McCall's custom 
to revise his remarks for publication, as is done 
by some members who insert these indications 
of approval at points where in their judgment 
their hearers should have risen to the occasion, 
I have concluded to let them stand. They are a 
part of the story and as such have some historic 
value. I am the more ready to do this since I 
find that Governor McCall himself adopted this 
practice in his life of Speaker Reed. 

LAWRENCE B. EVANS. 

701 Barristers Hall, Boston, 
April 19, 1 91 6. 



CONTENTS 

I. CHIEFLY BIOGRAPHICAL I 

II. TWENTY YEARS OF LEGISLATION 47 

III. CONSTITUTION'AL QUESTIONS 78 

• IV. THE POLICY OF PROTECTION II5 

V. THE SPANISH WAR AND ITS PROBLEMS I45 

VI. THE PRESIDENCY OF DARTMOUTH 

COLLEGE 17^ 

VII. THE MAN OF LETTERS 189 

VIII. MR. McCALL -^7 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

SAMUEL W. McCALL Frontispiece 

From a photograph by Bachrach 

SAMUEL W. McCALL AT THE AGE OF ELEVEN 8 

MR. McCALL AT NINETEEN 12 

MRS. MCCALL 21 8 

From a photograph by Henry Havclock Pierce 



Samuel W. McCall 

seven years of age. In spite of being thus early 
deprived of a father's care, the son grew and pros- 
pered, and his death, at the ripe age of ninety- 
five, was partly due to an accident. He took, to 
wife a woman of that sturdy stock known as 
Pennsylvania Dutch, and her portrait, made 
late in life, shows that her distinguished grand- 
son closely resembles her. One of the children 
of this marriage was Henry McCall, who was 
born in 1808. He married Mary Ann Elliott, 
whose father, Ennion Elliott, was High Sheriff 
of his county. Old residents of Chambersburg, 
the shire town, were long in the habit of relating 
stories of his industry in politics. Early in the 
morning he would set out on horseback equipped 
with saddlebags, and canvass the voters of his 
county. His wife, Susan Carver, who was a na- 
tive of Maryland, lived to be almost ninety-nine 
years of age. In fact. Governor McCall came of 
unusually vigorous ancestry, since the average 
age of his four grandparents was about ninety. 

Henry McCall and his wife were the parents 
of eleven children — seven sons and four daugh- 
ters. The sixth in order in this goodly company 
was Samuel Walker McCall, who was born at 
East Providence, Pennsylvania, February cl8, 
I 85 I . When he was two years old, his father was 
attracted by the opportunities offered by the 
2 



Chiefly Biographical 

newer communities west of the Alleghanics, and 
he therefore abandoned I^ennsylvania and jour- 
neyed down the Ohio River from Pittsburg to 
Cairo and thence up the Mississippi to Mount 
Carroll, Illinois, — a town not far from the Wis- 
consin line. Here he established his home. He 
was a well-to-do man for those days, as may be 
seen from the tact that he carried with him from 
Pennsylvania between eight and nine thousand 
dollars in gold. He invested in large tracts of 
land, which could then be bought almost at gov- 
ernment prices, and also engaged in the manu- 
facture of stoves, ploughs, and other machinery 
for the farmers. In this enterprise he was quite 
successful, but his credits were so extensive that 
the panic of 1H57-5S, which was the result 
largely of Buchanan's tariff policy, compelled 
him to close his factory. The county was then 
without a railroad, and the men who owned land 
very generally mortgaged it in order to secure 
the construction of a road. The enterprise failed, 
and the farmers who had mortgaged their land 
were compelled to take subscriptions for stock 
which was wholly worthless or to surrender their 
land. In common with the other people of the 
countv Henrv McCall suffered heavy losses in 
this way. Shortly after the outbreak of the Civil 
War, he moved upon a farm near Mt. Carroll, 

3 



Samuel W. McCall 

and in this undertaking he prospered greatly and 
did much to restore his fortunes. It was doubt- 
less his father whom Governor McCall had 
in mind when, in one of his early campaigns 
for Congress, he said in reply to his opponents, 
who dwelt much upon the fact that their nomi- 
nee was a son of John A. Andrew, the great 
War Governor of Massachusetts: — 

With reference to this question of fathers, I have to 
say that we are not consulted in the matter. It may be 
a fine thing to have a distinguished governor for a father. 
I think, however, that some of us would not swap the 
fathers that nature gave us for all the war governors in 
the world. 

The free and open life upon the Illinois farms 
during the middle decades of the nineteenth cen- 
tury made a profound impression upon the young 
boy Samuel. His father kept a large number of 
horses, and young Sam was frequently seen upon 
a horse usually without a saddle and sometimes 
without a bridle taking long rides over the al- 
most unbroken prairies. The contest with the 
primitive forces of nature was still on. The In- 
dian wars were close to them both in time and 
space. Towns were few and small. Government 
was not much in evidence. Men were subject to 
little law except "the natural law which is in one's 
own heart." Years afterward Mr. McCall spoke 

4 



Chiefly Biographical 

with deep feeling of his recollection of his prairie 
home : — 

There were neighbors on one side of us, ant! a great 
open prairie on the other. The fragrance of the wild 
flowers, roses among the rest, is with me yet. Bare- 
footed, I walked through the native grass, which was 
so tall that it reached to my neck. 1 saw blue-racers 
and now and then passed the brown nest of a prairie 
chicken, which I only discovered when the hen rose 
behind me and beat a tattoo of retreat with her wings. 
The air was as transparent as plate glass and full of 
tonic and sunlight, I have loved the prairies ever since, 
but they are gone with some of the other joys of my 
boyhood. Now, if one goes to a sparsely settled region, 
he finds mountains, arid plains or forests. 

It was doubtless due to the happy memories 
of this period of his life and to his actual knowl- 
edge of the conditions under which farmers live 
that later he became so impatient with the whining 
tone often assumed, particularly in legislative 
bodies, by self-appointed spokesmen of the farm- 
ing interest. In a speech delivered in Congress 
in 191 1 he said: — 

According to his eulogists here, the American farmer 
is a very serious-minded individual, with his wife and 
numerous progeny gathered about him — and I observe 
that these eulogists usually bless him with a bountiful 
offspring — desperatclv and with great solemnity endeav- 
oring to cling to a precarious existence. These orators 

5 



Samuel W. McCall 

lament over his rugged qualities, they almost brood over 
his virtues, and as for his faults, he has none, for he is 
a being to whom it is impossible to sin. 

Mr. Chairman, I have had some experience with the 
American farmer. I ha\e seen him in his native lair. 
It was my great good fortune to live for a number of 
years in my boyhood upon one of those glorious farms 
in northwestern Illinois — a 3200-an-acre farm, as the 
gentleman from Indiana called it — one of those prairie 
farms, not the flat farms that you have farther to the west, 
but where you have the billows of the prairie tumbling 
about you. One of those farms which, when they are 
under cultivation, present a scene of pastoral beauty and 
of fertility such as can scarcely be found anvwhere in the 
world. I have seen farmers actuallv burn corn for fuel, as 
has been so dramatically stated in this debate. ^^ hv, it has 
been presented here, as if it showed the destitution of 
the American farmer and his straitened circumstances, 
that he actually burned corn for fuel, I have seen him 
burn corn. Sometimes he would overcrop with one grain 
and could not sell it profitably, but he was prcttv sure 
to get even on some other grain; and instead of brood- 
ing over the burning of corn, more probably the farmer 
would sit cheerily smoking his pipe in the light of its 
blazing fire and his sons would rejoice that they did not 
have to chop wood. [Laughter and applause.] 

The American farmer is not the sad-eyed monstros- 
ity, always staring destiny in the face, that we have had 
painted here. The farmers, as I knew them, were a 
prosperous, independent, and happv race of men. I have 
known many farmers, and I have kjiown some men even 



Chiefly BiocRAniicAL 

on Wall Street, and I have made up my mind that they 
both belong to the same race, and that there is about 
as much human nature in the one class as in the other. 
I have sometimes thought that if the numbers were re- 
versed and that if we had five million voters on Wall 
Street and only a few hundred farmers, our statesmen 
would sing the homely virtues of J. P. iMorgan and his 
crew and would bestow upon them some of those lugu- 
brious eulogiums of which the American farmer has 
been so long the patient victim. [Applause and laugh- 
ter.] And their worst enemy could hardly wish them a 
harder fate. 

Mr. McCall was but ten years old when the 
Civil War broke out — too young to participate 
in it, but old enough to be profoundly impressed 
by it. That impression was made all the deeper 
by the fact that two of his brothers enlisted in 
the army, and the family was thus brought into 
direct personal contact with the struggle. His 
interest in the war was further enhanced by the 
proximity of the two great leaders in the contest, 
Lincoln and Grant, who were in a sense his neigh- 
bors. During the most receptive years of his life, 
therefore, he was daily in the presence of events 
which confirmed and strengthened a natural in- 
terest in public affairs. 

Mr. McCall's education was begun in the pub- 
lic schools of Illinois, but in 1864 he entered the 
Mt. Carroll Seminary, a boarding-school for both 

7 



Samuel W. McCall 

boys and girls, which, however, about a year and 
a half later was converted into a school for girls, 
and its male attendants were compelled to seek 
educational advantages elsewhere. From one of 
their neighbors who came from New Hampshire, 
the boy Samuel had heard of an academy situ- 
ated at New Hampton, New Hampshire, and he 
was so impressed by what was told him that he 
persuaded his father to send him to that institu- 
tion. Earlyone Monday morninghe was put upon 
a train and started for New Hampshire. That was 
a long journey in those days, and especially for 
a boy who had never traveled alone more than 
twenty-five miles from home. After running off 
the track and experiencing other adventures, he 
arrived at the school the following Friday night. 
Thus began, in 1867, his long connection with 
New England. 

The contrast between the physical aspect of 
New England and the prairies of Illinois made 
a strong impression upon his mind. In the speech 
to which reference has already been made he 
said: — 

I not only saw agriculture in the West, but when I 
was a young boy my father sent me to New England 
to school, and I had an opportunity there to see how 
they farmed in New England. In the West a farmer 
could turn a furrow for a mile, if his farm went that 
8 



n 




SAMUEL W McCALl. 
AT THE AGE OK ELEVEN 



Chiefly BiooRArincAL 

far, without taking his hand from the plough; hut in 
New Eiis;land the farmer would urge his horse, and 
more often his oxen, for a few feet and then would have to 
turn out for a stump or stone. [Laughter.] He would 
try to select smooth little patches upon the hillside. 
VVhile a New England hillside, with its alternation of 
little rye-fields and corn-fields and pasture and meadow 
and woodland, presents a very beautiful mosaic to the 
eye, it certainly is not favorable to agriculture. [Laugh- 
ter.] And it was inevitable that under the adverse 
natural conditions and with the antiquated methods 
which the New England farmers employed they could 
not compete with the rich and fertile prairie lands of 
the West. 

Mr. McCall remained in the academy at New 
Hampton three years. The instruction in that 
institution was unusually good. His teacher in 
Latin and Greek was George C. Chase, later Presi- 
dent of Bates College, whom Mr. McCall regards 
as one of the very best teachers he has ever known. 
In mathematics he had Professor Rand, who for 
manv vearswas head of the Departmentof Mathe- 
matics in Bates College. Dr. Meservey, the princi- 
pal of the academy, an author of books and a fa- 
mous teacher in his day , gave instruction in science. 
On Mr. McCall's graduation from the academy 
in 1870, he was made valedictorian of his class. 
The following autumn he entered Dartmouth 
with the Class of 1874. 

9 



Samuel W. McCall 

A knowledge of the classics and mathematics 
was not the only, or even the chief, acquisition 
which Mr. McCall made at the New Hampton 
Academy. One of his fellow students at that 
institution was Miss Ella Esther Thompson, 
who in 1 88 1 became Mrs. McCall. She was the 
daughter of Sumner Shaw Thompson, a native 
of Plymouth County, Massachusetts, where his 
ancestors had resided ever since the landing of 
the Mayflower. His business interests took him 
to Vermont where he established his home and 
made a reputation as a man of large affairs, extend- 
ing far beyond the boundaries of his State. He 
achieved a remarkable success as a business man, 
being identified with the construction of railroads 
from his boyhood and becoming one of the best- 
known railroad builders of his time. He was also 
a banker and had large interests in timber lands 
in Vermont and Michigan. He left a well-earned 
fortune which might have been much larger ex- 
cept for his generous giving. He was a Repub- 
lican in politics, and, while reluctant to hold office, 
was called upon at different times to render impor- 
tant public service. His wife, Harriet Stark Wiley, 
was from Maine, and through her Mrs. McCall is 
related to Admiral Peary. While Mr. McCall was 
in Congress, he was invited to speak on Fore- 
fathers' Day before the New England Society of 

10 



Cm K FLY H IOC, RATH I CAL 

Philadelphia, and was introduced to the audience 
as a real Yankee from New luigland. He some- 
what surprised his hearers by saying that he was 
probably the only person present who was a na- 
tive of l^ennsylvania. In speaking of the matter 
afterward, he said that they were somewhat dis- 
concerted when they found that he had never 
seen New Kngland until he was sixteen years old. 
But they were reconciled to the situation when 
he told them that he had married a Mayflower 
descendant; and as he and Mrs. McCall were the 
parents of five children, he could claim to be 
literally one of the "Pilgrim Fathers." 

In the autumn of 1870 Mr. McCall began his 
studies in Dartmouth College. From his early 
boyhood he had been stronglv attracted by Dan- 
iel Webster, and his mind first turned toward 
Dartmouth because that was Webster's college. 
He was unusually well fitted, and this, together 
with the ease with which he learned, enabled him 
to take high rank, especially in the classics. At 
graduation he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and 
according to the method of ranking used bv that 
society, he stood second in his class which num- 
bered a little more than sixtv. Among his class- 
mates who have since become well known were 
John A. Aiken, Chief Justice of the Superior Court 
of Massachusetts ; Edwin G. Eastman, for twenty 

1 1 



Samuel W. McCall 

years Attorney General of New Hampshire; 
Homer P. Lewis, Superintendent of Schools of 
Worcester, Massachusetts ; Frank N. Parsons, 
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New 
Hampshire ; Samuel L. Powers, ex-member 
of Congress from Massachusetts ; Charles E. 
Quimby, a prominent physician in New York ; 
and General Frank S. Streeter, a leading mem- 
ber of the bar of New Hampshire. 

Although Mr. McCall took high rank as a 
student he also found time for other activities. 
He was a member of Kappa Kappa Kappa, a 
strong local society established in opposition to 
the intercollegiate fraternities. He was also much 
interested in debating. It was in his junior year 
that boating was introduced as a college sport. 
For some time there had been a regular college 
regatta on the Connecticut River at Springfield, 
in which nearly all the New England colleges 
participated. Dartmouth decided to join this 
association, and formed a boat club of which Mr. 
McCall was in turn vice-president and president. 
In his senior year he had charge of the Dart- 
mouth crew in the intercollegiate regatta which 
that year was held at Saratoga. After his gradua- 
tion he was made a member of the graduate com- 
mittee of three chosen bv all the colleges in the 
association and which had charge of the regatta. 

12 




SAMLKI. W McCALL 
AT THK A(Jt OK MNETEtN 



Chiefly Bio(^,rai'hical 

In the work of this committee he showed that in- 
dependence of judgment which has been so char- 
acteristic of him throughout his Hfe. The major- 
ity of the committee recommended that the next 
regatta be held at Saratoga, which was then a 
notorious gambling center, and this recommen- 
dation was adopted. Mr. McCall dissented and 
brought in a minority report in favor of New 
London. " So you see I began my career as a 
kicker and I have kept it up ever since." 

As a student Mr. McCall was also much in- 
terested in college journalism. Some members 
of the Class of 1873 established the " Dartmouth 
Anvil," and Mr. McCall and some of his class- 
mates were invited to seats on the editorial board. 
In his senior year, he became editor-in-chief of 
the paper, and among his associates were three 
men now known as Chief Justice Aiken, Chief 
Justice Parsons, and ex-Congressman Powers. 
In its general plan the " Dartmouth Anvil " was 
quite different from the current type of colleo;e 
paper. At present such a paper is expected to 
give the news of the college circle, but no effort 
is made to chronicle the happenings of the outer 
world. But in the " Dartmouth Anvil " there 
was little in the character of its news to indicate 
that it was a college paper. Any other paper pub- 
lished in Hanover might have been expected to 

'3 



SaxMuel W. McCall 

give as much attention to college affairs as did 
the " Anvil." In the main it was made up of 
the local news of Hanover and near-by towns, 
excellent summaries of the news of the world at 
large, able reviews of new books and extended 
editorials on the important happenings of the 
day. It was all treated, however, from the stand- 
point of a college student and was pervaded with 
the tang of college life. Its daring comments and 
cock-sure judgments could only have emanated 
from undergraduate circles. 

The Governor of Massachusetts was the au- 
thor of the following comment in the "Anvil" 
upon the achievements of the Legislature of New 
Hampshire : — 

The State Legislature, after an unusually short ses- 
sion, has at length adjourned. Scarcely anything beyond 
the necessary work of a session has been attempted. 
To be sure, a zealous reformer offered a hill which 
recognized and to some extent atoned for the wrongs 
of the weaker sex, but our sturdy Spartan legislators 
refused to grant attention to a subject of such trivial 
importance, and voted it a place upon the table. A 
movement was made to appropriate $25,000 for the 
purpose of making a much-needed improvement upon 
the insane asylum, but the State was poor — so thought 
these rustic statesmen — and insanity was a human weak- 
ness, and the fostering of human weaknesses was n't 
good and great, and so it was wisely ordained that the 



C H I !•: KL V B I OG K A T II I C A L 

State should discourage people in their foolish habit of 
becoming insane by refusing to make the appropria- 
tion. The "local-option" plan, which is finding such 
favor in other States, and which was recommended for 
action by the Governor, was not meddled with, and we 
think wisely too. The revision of the Constitution, 
which in our opinion should have been the great ques- 
tion of the Legislature, was left untouched. In fact, 
about the only positive thing these eighteen scores of 
men did, in a session of twenty-eight days, was to ad- 
journ. This Legislature might easily have rendered 
itself more dangerous by tinkering with the laws of the 
State in imitation of other legislative bodies, but for 
cool, stoical inactivity we have never seen its equal. If 
some ingenious Yankee could invent a machine to say 
yea, yea, and nav, nay, but principallv nay, and teach 
some deaf mute to run it, the State would be saved the 
expense of assembling its sages in every torrid June. 

In another issue of the "Anvil" Mr. McCall 
wrote an extended report of the inaiiG;uration of 
the Governor of New Hampshire, the style of 
which may be inferred from this sentence: "The 
Governor arose and in a firm tone announced 
that he had a sore throat and that the clerk 
would read his message." 

It is not surprising that such a paper made 
considerable impression upon its contemporaries 
and was much quoted in the metropolitan jour- 
nals. It was never a financial success, however, 

'5 



Samuel W. McCall 

and as it was a private venture, published at the 
expense of the editors, some of them had cause 
to regret their connection with it. It finally came 
to grief because of an audacious article reflecting 
upon the credit of the Dartmouth National Bank, 
a local institution of which the college treasurer 
was cashier and which was regarded as a fair 
subject of criticism. As a result the faculty inter- 
vened, and after two or three more numbers pub- 
lication was suspended. Each of the editors gave 
a note for his share of the debt of the paper. 
After a number of years Mr. McCall paid his 
note, and in speaking of it at a college dinner he 
remarked that the New Hampshire method of 
computing interest made compound interest seem 
quite unimportant, and that the principal of his 
note was insignificant as compared with the ac- 
crued interest. 

Like many other distinguished men, Mr. 
McCall has had some experience as a teacher. 
In his junior year at Dartmouth, the principal 
of Kimball-Union Academy at Meriden, New 
Hampshire, fell ill, and asked the president of 
Dartmouth to send a student to teach his classes 
in the ancient languages. Mr. McCall was sent 
and for three weeks expounded Greek and Latin. 
It was one of his pupils at this institution who, 
after Mr. McCall's speech in i 893 in favor of the 
16 



Chililv Bio(;KArincAL 

repeal of the Silver Purchase Act, wrote to him 
from Nebraska : — 

Dear Sir: You once were my teacher in Latin and 
Greek at the Kimball-Union Academy. I have just read 
your speech on the silver bill. You are a damned fool. 
Yours truly. 

To this frank expression ot opinion the follow- 
ing reply was made: — 

Dear Sir: I may have been your teacher in I^atin 
and Greek, but I am glad I was not your teacher in 
piety and propriety. 

Yours respectfully 

S. W. McCall. 

After his graduation, while he and his friend 
Powers were studying law at Nashua, they decided 
to supplement the remittances which they re- 
ceived from home by teaching a night school. 
Mr. McCall has given this account of their 
experience : — 

Many of the pupils were lusty chaps and pugilistic 
in disposition. Consequently, when Sam taught I 
watched, and when I taught he watched. One night 
he got into a heated controversy with a big fellow in 
the back line of scats, and there were indications that 
the fight which ensued might become general. I knew 
the school could whip both Sam and me, and so I said, 
*' Boys, if vou don't interfere, I won't. Let the better 
man win." Sam conquered the ruffian by a free appii- 

17 



Samuel W. McCall 

cation of his fists and has ever since boasted of my art 
in diplomacy. 

While a boy in Illinois Mr. McCall had been 
captivated by a speech which he heard Senator 
Lyman Trumbull make at a county fair, and while 
still at Dartmouth he arranged that on his grad- 
uation he should go to Chicago and study law 
in Trumbull's office. This plan was abandoned, 
partly perhaps because of his unwillingness to go 
so far away from the young lady who was to be- 
come his wife, and partly because of the persua- 
sion of his classmate, Samuel L, Powers, who was 
to study law at Nashua, New Hampshire, and 
wished Mr. McCall to join him. After a year at 
Nashua the two young men removed to Worces- 
ter, Massachusetts, where they continued their 
studies, and in 1875 they were admitted to the 
Massachusetts Bar. They formed a partnership 
and opened an office in the Equitable Building in 
Boston. Like many another young law firm, it 
encountered stormy waters. Their first case con- 
cerned a bill often dollars for rent, and they lost 
it. The later history of the partnership and its 
final dissolution are best told in Mr. McCall's 
own words: — 

Sam said we ought to live in a better-looking house. 
It would help business, he thought. He hunted around 
and found an imposing edifice with a marble front. We 
18 



Chiefly BiooRAriiicAL 

moved, but Sam was wrong, p'urthcrmorc, our landlady 
kept a miserable little dog which furiously barked at us 
every time we approached our habitation. Sam said that 
the barking was undignified and that it tended to lower 
our tone both as lawyers and citizens. " Who," he 
asked, "wants to be yelped at as if he were a cow or 
a tramp ? " 

On Saturday night, if our resources were scant, we 
went home together, and after bedtime, in the hope of 
finding the dog nodding at his post, dead, or absent. But 
he was always wide awake and on duty, and then the 
woman would get out of bed and dun us. Finally, the 
firm held a consultation. Sam said that the partners 
separately could make fully as much money as they could 
jointly. He got a piece of paper and multiplied nothing 
by one and then by two and mathematically proved the 
accuracy of his observation. Thus the partnership was 
dissolved. My practice grew and so did his and we got 
along all right. 

Mr. McCall's law practice, in which he had 
encountered such difficulties in the beginning, 
finally attained considerable proportions, but after 
he entered Congress, where he remained so long, 
it inevitably disappeared. 

Throughout these early years at the bar Mr. 
McCall participated in the discussion of public 
affairs both in political speeches and in newspapers 
and magazines. He began a life of Napoleon, 
part of which was published in a magazine which 

19 



Samuel W. McCall 

failed before the work was completed. Another 
paper, entitled " English Views of America," re- 
sented the condescending attitude assumed to- 
ward America by English visitors. A character 
who strongly attracted him and was made the sub- 
ject of one of his early magazine articles was Rufus 
Choate. Another article was a somewhat severe 
arraignment of Charles Sumner. In consequence 
of his own experience subsequently in public life, 
Mr. McCall has said that he has modified his 
judgment and would not now be so harsh with 
Sumner. In view of the present discussion of 
national preparedness, an article by him, entitled 
"A Plea for a Strong Navy," published in the 
"Penn Monthly," Philadelphia, in i88i,isof 
particular interest. Even at that early day, when 
the subject was not much discussed, he perceived 
the necessity of maintaining a force sufficient to 
protect the rights of this country. In a striking 
passage he said: — 

While our two great political parties are fighting over 
again in Congress or in their campaigns the battles of 
the rebellion, while they are disputing whether our in- 
significant armv should not be made more insignificant, 
the weakness of our navy is inviting insult to our flag 
upon the seas. It is possible for European ironclads of 
even the second rate to enter our harbors uninjured in 
spite of our ships of war or of any guns mounted in our 
20 



Chiefly Biographical 

forts, to hold our chief cities at the mercies of their 
armaments, and to extort from our merchants tribute 
enough to build three navies. We arc not even secure 
from invasion by foreign troops. The fleets of England 
alone could escort across the Atlantic all the armies of 
Europe, and the battlefield between ourselves and foreign 
invaders, which should he the wide barrier of the sea, 
would thus become our own shores. Suppose some for- 
eign power should attempt an invasion with a well- 
trained army of two hundred thousand men under the 
convoy of a powerful fleet. If we had an effective navy, 
such an expedition could never cross the ocean. But 
with our present fleet, our only defense would be the 
liability to a disastrous storm, and if no such accident 
should intervene, the expedition could without doubt 
choose its own landing-place. And what would prob- 
ably be the result? It is by no means sufficient to tell 
us that we are brave. Experience demonstrates that a 
regular armv, manoeuvring upon open plains, such as 
the richest portions of our coast afford, should be en- 
countered with discipline as well as valor. Nothing could 
be hoped for from our weak and scattered armv, but we 
should be compelled to relv upon volunteers. And volun- 
teers, however brave, could not at first do otherwise 
than to permit such an army to slaughter them. In a 
short time we would be disciplined, and, by incredible 
exertions, our unwieldly masses would be formed into 
armies. But in that short time our rich and unprotected 
cities, the wealthy tract of country along our eastern sea- 
board, would be overrun and pillaged, and having de- 
stroyed or stolen the fruits of our unexampled growth, 

21 



Samuel W. McCall 

the invaders could retreat to their ships as the English 
did from Portugal, and return unharmed. These are no 
mere chimerical dangers. If it is granted that they are 
not probable, they are at least possible. Wars do arise, 
and in these days of ocean cables and steamships they 
can arise quickly. Our defenseless condition and the 
possibility of inflicting a tremendous blow upon us might 
tempt the cupidity or ambition of foreign nations. It is 
criminal for us, through our weakness and our wealth, 
to permit such large appeals to the piratical instincts of 
mankind. We may presume too far upon the enlighten- 
ment even of this age. It seems little less than treason- 
able negligence upon the part of our statesmen to permit 
such humiliating possibilities. 

In 1887 Mr. McCall was elected to the Mass- 
achusetts House of Representatives from the 
Winchester-Arlington District, and with but 
two brief intervals he has been in the service of 
Commonwealth or Nation ever since. In this 
Legislature he v^as made chairman of the House 
Committee on Probate and Insolvency, and he 
showed his reforming tendencies by introducing 
a bill dealing with poor debtors. Prior to that 
time, when an execution had been obtained for 
a debt of more than twenty dollars, the lawyer 
representing the creditors would have the debtor 
brought before an inferior magistrate, who was 
paid by fees. As the business of some of the 
professional debt-collectors was very consider- 
22 



Chiefly Biographical 

able, it was made directly to the interest of the 
magistrate to secure the business of these law- 
yers; and very many times men whose only crime 
was poverty were sent to jail for debt, while 
many a rich debtor was able to defy his creditors. 
Mr. McCall introduced a comprehensive bill 
which abolished the fee system, and conferred 
jurisdiction over cases of poor debtors upon a 
reputable and established court. The effect of 
this bill, which was declared at the time to have 
been the most beneficent measure of the whole 
session, was to abolish imprisonment for debt in 
Massachusetts, except in cases of fraud. 

In 1888, Mr. McCall made his first appear- 
ance in national politics in consequence of elec- 
tion as a delegate to the National Republican 
Convention, where he made a speech before the 
convention, seconding the nomination of Judge 
Gresham. 

Early in that year, in company with William 
E. Barrett and Henry Parkman, he purchased 
the "Boston Daily Advertiser" and "Record" 
and became the editor-in-chief of the "Adver- 
tiser." During his editorship, the paper was 
strongly Republican, and supported the election 
of Benjamin Harrison. 

He was again elected to the Legislature of 
1889, and was made chairman of the Committee 

23 



Samuel W. McCall 

on the Judiciary, a position which made him the 
leader of the House. The volume of work before 
this committee was unusually large; and it re- 
ported to the House about two hundred different 
measures. It is extraordinary that in onlv one 
case did the House set aside the recommendation 
of the committee. 

At this session, Mr. McCall introduced a 
corrupt practices bill. It was adversely reported 
by the Committee on Elections, but he moved 
to substitute his bill in the House, and after a 
contest, it passed the House, although it failed 
in the Senate. This bill, which was popularly 
known at the time as "The Anti-Boodle Bill," 
was the first corrupt practices bill ever passed 
by a legislative body in America. 

At this session, also, Mr. McCall introduced 
an order for the abolition of the Boston City 
Council. Although the order was not adopted, 
it was not without effect; for thereafter the 
Council showed a commendable degree of atten- 
tion to business. 

One of the most important events of the ses- 
sion was the controversy between the House and 
the Justices of the Supreme Judicial Court. Act- 
ing under what it claimed were its constitu- 
tional rights, the House asked the opinion of 
the Justices upon certain questions growing out 
24 



Chiefly BiocRArincAL 

of the laws relating to the public schools. The 
Justices replied, declining to give their opinion. 
This reply vvas referred to the Judiciary Com- 
mittee, on behalf of which Mr. McCall prepared 
an elaborate and learned report, and introduced 
a resolution embodying the views of the House, 
to the effect that it was the constitutional duty 
of the Justices to answer the questions pro- 
pounded to them. This resolution was adopted 
bv the House by a vote of i68 to 8. The ques- 
tion involved in the controversy is one of much 
importance in the government of Massachusetts, 
and was widely discussed in the legal periodicals 
of that time. 

Another controversy in which Mr. McCall 
took a leading part arose on the last day of the 
session. The House was to adjourn on June 7, 
and on that day a bill which had passed the Sen- 
ate, bv which fishermen were excluded from the 
exemption which protects the wages of sailors 
from trustee process, came before the House 
for action. Mr. McCall's committee to which 
it had been referred reported adversely; but 
the House, by a majority of 30, set aside the 
report of the Committee, and substituted the 
bill. 

Mr. McCall vehemently opposed this action, 
and said : — 

25 



Samuel W. McCall 

Throughout all the last campaign, we heard of little 
except your love for the poor fisherman. You deco- 
rated him with the flag. You were ready to die in de- 
fense of the men who compose the nursery of our future 
navy, who brave the dangers of the storm and the Ca- 
nadian pirates, and were finally almost the only men 
who displayed our flag upon the sea. But the election 
has been held, and you now propose to repeal the only 
law that exists in his favor. He was emphatically a 
sailor for campaign purposes, but you now propose to 
declare that he is not a sailor for purposes of the trustee 
process. While I am as anxious to adjourn as any mem- 
ber of this House, I will stay here, if necessary, until 
the 4th of July, rather than permit such a bill to pass, 
except through the regular stages. 

' When the final vote was taken, the House re- 
versed itself, chiefly because of Mr. McCall's in- 
dependent opposition. And the bill was finally 
defeated by 27 votes. 

Mr. McCall was not a member of the Legis- 
lature the following two years, but served during 
that period as a Ballot Law Commissioner, to 
which office he was appointed by Governor 
Russell. In 1892 he was again a member of the 
Legislature, and became chairman of the House 
Committee upon Election Laws. This position 
gave him opportunity to renew the agitation which 
he had begun two years before, in favor of the en- 
actment of a corrupt practices act. His efforts 
26 



Chiefly BiooRArmcAL 

were now successful, and the bill which it was his 
good fortune to conduct through the House be- 
came the law of the Commonwealth. To antici- 
pate somewhat the course of events, it may be 
said here that many years later, while a member 
of Congress, he introduced a bill in the House 
dealing with the same subject. After two or three 
attempts, it finally was adopted, and bore his 
name. He thus has had the distinction of leading 
the way, both in the Legislature of Massachusetts 
and in the Federal Congress, in the enactment 
of legislation having for its object the restric- 
tion and regulation of the use of money in elec- 
tions. 

In 1891, the congressional districts in Massa- 
chusetts were rearranged, and Winchester, the 
town in which Mr. McCall resided, was taken 
out of the Lynn district, in which it had been 
for many years, and where Mr. McCall had many 
friends, and was attached to a metropolitan dis- 
trict, which included the cities of Cambridge and 
Somerville and the Back Bay wards of Boston. 
Although Winchester was the smallest place in 
the district, Mr. McCall was nominated in 1892 
by the Republican Party as its candidate for 
Representative in Congress. His opponent was 
John F. Andrew, a son of the great " War Gov- 
ernor," and a man of great popularity. The con- 

27 



Samuel W. McCall 

test was a notable one; and, on account of the 
balancing of the political parties in the district, 
was very close; but although William E. Russell, 
a Democrat, carried the district for Governor by 
52 votes, Mr. McCall was elected to Cone;ress 
by 992 votes. This was the first of his ten cam- 
paigns for Congress. And it is a notable indica- 
tion of his popularity among his constituents, that 
each time after his first nomination, he was re- 
nominated by his party by acclamation, and was 
reelected by substantial majorities. In one elec- 
tion his majority reached the figures of 18,888, 
which was the largest majority ever given to a 
candidate for Congress in Massachusetts. 

Mr. McCall's part in the discussion of the 
measures which came before Congress during his 
membership of twenty years in the House will 
be treated in subsequent chapters. It should be 
said at this point, however, that his course in 
Congress was marked by an unusual degree of 
independence. When he thought that the atti- 
tude of his party was wrong, he did not hesitate 
to say so and to vote accordingly. It was natural 
that his refusal to join with the great mass of his 
party associates in Congress in support of the 
measures advocated by the President should 
have aroused antagonism in the minds of strong 
partisans, to whom opposition to the President 
28 



Chif.flv BiOGRAI'IIICAL 

appeared little short of treason. At a Republi- 
can caucus in Winchester in September, 1900, 
a resolution was presented expressing " unquali- 
fied disapproval " of his action on the issues 
growing out of the Spanish War, and declar- 
ing it to be his duty to fall in line with the rest 
of the party, especially when importuned to do 
so by such a man as Representative Grosvenor 
of Ohio. An interesting discussion followed, 
in which Mr. McCall participated. He gave his 
reasons for his attitude on the various matters as 
to which he had been criticized, and concluded 
by saying, " If you are looking for a man to rep- 
resent you who will vote as Grosvenor says, if 
you want a man with the backbone of an angle- 
worm, don't send me back to Congress." I'he 
resolution was defeated by a vote of 197 to 3. 
The next month Mr. McCall was renominated 
by acclamation and his plurality in November 
was nearly 12,000, — the largest given to any 
Massachusetts Congressman at that election. 

Few candidates for public office have ever re- 
ceived so marked a compliment at the hands of 
their constituents as did Mr. McCall in the elec- 
tion of 1904. Mr. Roosevelt, then at the zenith 
of his popularity, was the candidate for Presi- 
dent. Mr. Bates was the Republican nominee for 
Governor of Massachusetts. Mr. McCall was tor 

29 



Samuel W. McCall 

the seventh time the candidate of his party 
for Congress. His election was assured, for the 
Democrats nominated no one against him. This 
was not an unprecedented situation, since it 
rather frequently happens that a party which 
feels itself hopelessly in the minority does not 
even name a stalking horse. The extraordinary 
feature of this election lav not in the fact that 
the opposition named no candidate, but that 
about forty per cent of the Democratic voters in 
the district cast their ballots for Mr. McCall. The 
total vote of the three Republican candidates in 
the district was 15,000 for Bates for Governor, 
18,626 for Roosevelt for President, and 21,551 
for McCall for Congress. In commenting upon 
this extraordinary result, a metropolitan journal 
said : — 

The wayfaring man, though a fool, cannot be blind 
to the significance of all this. In the Eijjhth District 
the voters encountered the appeal of two very different 
kinds of popularity. Not a vestige of doubt remains re- 
garding President Roosevelt's popularity ; and yet in the 
district in question it did not excite so much enthusi- 
asm at the polls as that evoked by Mr. McCall. The 
latter has none of the spectacular qualities of President 
Roosevelt. The President "does things"; the times 
have apparently been right for his kind of things rather 
than for Mr. McCall's. . . . Loyalty to the Constitu- 
tion, a rational tariff, justice to our conquered provinces, 

30 



ClIIKFLV BlOCRAPHICAL 

a conservative foreign policv, and economy in public 
expenditures are issues to which Mr. McCall's name 
has been indissolubly linked in the past. His record is 
known far and wide. His course has been one of more 
than mere acquiescence in the great policies just enumer- 
ated. In his speeches in and out of Congress, and by 
his pen, he has defended them with skill and courage. 
His remarkable plurality on November 8 mav therefore 
be regarded as Massachusetts' clearest utterance regard- 
ing the future policv of the nation. 

Mr. McCall's first important committee ser- 
vice in Congress was as a member of the Com- 
mittee on Elections, of which he was chairman 
for two years. In fourteen contests, his reports, 
several of which were against his own party's 
candidates, were followed by the House in 
every instance. One of the most notable of these 
contests was that between Yost and Tucker, 
which was debated by the House for two days 
and resulted in a decision in favor of Tucker, 
the Democratic contestant, by a majoritv of five 
votes. The system, however, by which the 
House is made the judge of what is essentially 
a question of law and evidence, is bad, and Mr. 
McCall introduced a resolution providing^ that 
in every such case there should be a preliminary 
investigation by a court whose conclusions could 
be adopted or rejected by the House as it saw 

3» 



Samuel W. McCall 

fit. This proposal, however, was not accepted, 
and the old system continues. 

Mr. McCall was also a member of the Judi- 
ciary Committee, and was for ten years a mem- 
ber of the Committee on the Library during four 
years of which he was its chairman. This com- 
mittee has jurisdiction over bills relating to public 
memorials and works of art in Washington. For 
the better regulation of the artistic development 
of our capital city Mr. McCall introduced a 
measure, which was adopted, for the establish- 
ment of a National Commission on the Fine 
Arts. Some of the most eminent of American 
artists, including Burnham the architect, French 
the sculptor, and Olmsted the landscape archi- 
tect, have served on this commission. Such legis- 
lation is not spectacular and attracts the attention 
of comparatively few, but the development of 
Washington, which is rapidly becoming the 
world's most beautiful capital, owes much to 
this measure. Mr. McCall was also responsible 
for the completion of the pediment of the House 
wing of the Capitol, and the sculptured group by 
Paul Bartlett, which is now about to be put in 
place, will confer new distinction upon Amer- 
ican art. Another important work with which 
Mr. McCall is associated is the building of the 
Lincoln Memorial, the design of which shows 
32 



ChIKFLY BlOGRArmCAL 

that It will be one of the most beautiful and 
impressive structures in any country. He was 
named by Congress as one of the commission 
to have charge of its erection. His most import- 
ant committee service, however, was on the Com- 
mittee on Ways and Means, of which he was a 
member for fourteen years — a longer tenure 
than that ever enjoyed by any other New Eng- 
land Representative. The nature and extent of 
his work on this committee will appear in a later 
chapter dealing with the tariff. 

Mr. McCall has also had the uncommon 
distinction of having served upon nearly every 
committee appointed by the House for the inves- 
tigation of the conduct of its own members. One 
of these was the committee to investigate the 
charges of corruption in connection with the pur- 
chase of the Danish West Indies. The most im- 
portant committee of this kind was that appointed 
to investigate the relations of members of the 
House with the Post-Office Department. Charges 
and insinuations of the most serious character 
had been made against many Representatives. 
Such charges could not be ignored, and yet if the 
House undertook an Investigation it was likely 
to be accused of " whitewashing its members." 
The character of the men appointed to this com- 
mittee inspired such confidence that there was 

33 



Samuel W. McCall 

general acquiescence in its findings. It was com- 
posed, besides Mr. McCall, of Hitt of Illinois, 
Burton of Ohio, Metcalf of California, and three 
Democrats all of whom had served upon the 
bench. Of this committee Mr. McCall was made 
the chairman, and he has been heard to refer to 
this appointment as the highest honor which he 
ever received at the hands of his colleagues in 
the House. 

A phase of Mr. McCall's career in Congress 
which is of considerable personal interest and of 
some public importance concerns his relations 
with Speaker Cannon. When Mr. McCall en- 
tered the House in 1893, Mr. Cannon had 
already been a member since 1873. Mr. McCall 
had high respect for Mr. Cannon's ability as a 
legislator and especiallv for his great service in 
connection with the Committee on Appropria- 
tions. He was one of the strongest forces ever 
in Congress in favor of the honest and economic 
expenditure of public money. No proposition 
tainted with graft ever received his approval. 
Mr. McCall was not originally in favor of Mr. 
Cannon's election to the speakership, but he was 
so strong that all other candidates withdrew and 
in the Republican caucus he had no opposition. 
As Speaker he was the leading representative of 
his party in the House, and as Mr. McCall fre- 

34 



Chiefly Biographical 

quently criticized the party he often antagonized 
the Speaker. The relations of the two men were 
thus picturesquely described by J. B. Morrow, 
a prominent Washington correspondent : — 

If Samuel Walker McCall were an ox, tractable un- 
der the yoke and callous to the gad, he might be the 
one mighty leader in the labors and policies of the lower 
H(juse of Congress. He has the head for it. But he is 
an intellectual thoroughbred, with the pernicious vices, 
from a party point of view, of jumping fences, biting 
and striking at his trainers, and running away with 
those who try to drive him. So he is put in a stall 
by himself, and whenever Uncle Joseph Cannon ap- 
proaches, either with a bridle or a measure of oats, he 
carries a pitchfork and holloas " Whoa !" 

Mr. Cannon was frequently urged to displace 
Mr. McCall from the Committee on Wavs and 
Means because of his advocacv of lower duties, 
but the Speaker steadily refused and reappointed 
him in each Congress. 

At the end of Mr. Cannon's third term in the 
speakership, he was perhaps the most popular 
man in his party. Then he incurred the hostility 
of the newspapers because of his opposition to 
free paper. It soon became the correct thin^r to 
criticize the Speaker. The so-called "insurgents" 
reaped a golden harvest of reputation by abus- 
ing Mr. Cannon. To attack " Uncle Joe" was 

35 



Samuel W. McCall 

at that time a short cut to fame. The opprobrium 
heaped upon him makes one wonder why an in- 
telHgent constituency has chosen him as its Rep- 
resentative for forty years and why his colleagues 
in the House have four times elected him to the 
office of Speaker. In spite of the honors which 
his party had showered upon him, enough Re- 
publicans were found who were willing to unite 
with the solid Democratic membership in a move- 
ment to degrade him, and a resolution was 
brought in to remove him from the Committee 
on Rules, of which the Speaker had been a mem- 
ber ex officio(ov fifty years. In the debate on the 
resolution, March 19, 19 10, Mr. McCall said: — 

Mr. Speaker, I desire to say a few words upon the 
proposition before the House; but it is manifestly im- 
possible to discuss it within the two minutes yielded to 
me. 

This proceeding, in my opinion, is aimed at the 
Speaker of the House of Representatives. The prop- 
osition of the gentleman from South Dakota deposes 
the Speaker from his present position as a member of 
the Committee on Rules. Now, if it were an entirely 
new proposition, at the beginning of a Congress, I 
should consider its adoption ; but I do not propose to 
vote for it, and I do not consider that it is open to be 
passed by a House controlled by Republicans. I do not 
propose to vote to deliver the Speaker, bound hand and 
foot, over to the minority party, although I know that 

36 



Chiefly BiooRArmcAL 

if you do that, he will go with head unbtnvcd and erect, 
in the simple majesty of American manhood. [Ap- 
plause.] This movement does not originate in the 
House of Representatives. I am not undiscriminating. 
I do not condemn a whole class, but you are about to 
do the behest of a gang of literary highwaymen who are 
entirely willing to assassinate a reputation in order to 
sell a magazine. [Applause.] I believe that the Speaker 
of the House, by his conduct in the last three days, if 
the country has been permitted to know it, has shat- 
tered manv of the criticisms that have been made against 
hinii and, as I see him there, his spirit reminds me of 
that of the old Ulysses starting off on his last voyage: — 

" Push off, and sitting well in order smite 
The sounding furrows ; for my purpose holds 
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 
Of all the western stars, unul 1 die." 

[Applause.] 

As Mr. McCall approached the completion of 
twenty years of continuous service in the House 
of Representatives, he decided not to be a candi- 
date for reelection. This decision was announced 
to his constituents in the following letter: — 
To the Foters of the Eighth Congressional District : — 

I have decided not to be a candidate for the House of 
Representatives at the approaching election. I have an 
ambition, not unworthv, I trust, to serve you in another 
capacity, concerning which I shall make a definite an- 
nouncement at a suitable time. But, apart from that, 
after the strain of twenty years' continuous service in 

37 



Samuel W. McCall 

a great popular assembly like the national House of Rep- 
resentatives, I should feel quite disposed to ask you not 
to consider me in selecting your Representative. 

I regret keenly to arrive at this conclusion. The 
Eighth Massachusetts District is altogether unique. In 
point of intelligence and civic virtue it has no superior 
in the country. The support I have received from such 
a constituency is far beyond my deserts. Since my first 
election in 1892 I have been regularly renominated by 
acclamation in the conventions of my party, and have 
been elected by the most gratifying majorities. I have 
always felt that the best recompense I could make for 
your generous support was to reverence my relation as 
your Representative and treat your commission broadly 
as a mandate to serve the whole country. 

Those twenty years have been crowded with events 
so momentous as to make them, with the exception 
of the Civil War era, easily the most important period 
since the establishment of our Go\'ernmcnt, In meeting 
the difficult problems forced upon the attention of Con- 
gress, I have often felt called upon to act independently 
of my own party, and sometimes of both parties. While 
I have occasionally found myself in a small minority, I 
have known no other way than to follow where my own 
judgment clearly led. But this is not the place, nor is 
mine the pen, to recount the record of those years. I 
may only say that the chief purpose animating me in 
my service has been to help keep vital the essential prin- 
ciples of the American Constitution so necessary to the 
continued greatness of our country and to the preser\ a- 
tion of our liberties. 

38 



Chiefly Biographical 

I acknowledge my deep gratitude at the opportunity 
of service you ha\e given me. In that scr\ ice I have 
doubtless made many mistakes, but my intention has 
always been true to vou, and the commission I return is 
as clean as on the day when I received it from your 
hands. 

Samuel W. McCall. 

Myopia RoaJ, Jf'inchesler, Mass. 
July ig, igi2. 

Senator Crane had already announced his in- 
tention to retire from the Senate on the expira- 
tion of his term. The choice of his successor 
aroused interest throughout the country. The 
general opinion of the press indicated Mr. McCall 
as the most appropriate selection. In fact he was 
the only candidate who attracted the attention of 
the great newspapers outside of the State. The 
" New York Times" in a long editorial said : — 

It really looks as if Massachusetts was making up its 
mind to honor itself and serve the nation as well by 
sending Samuel W. McCall to the Senate to fill the va- 
cancy caused by the retirement of Murray Crane. It is 
a Bay State tradition that the senatorship is an office not 
to be wasted upon small men. Tradition counts for 
more in Massachusetts than in some other States. She 
has had a habit of sending to the Senate men of note 
and real substance, men whose reputations become coun- 
trywide. Congressman McCall is worthy of a place in 
that distinguished line. He has the gifts and the acquire- 

39 



Samuel W. McCall 

ments that fit him for public life, for the senatorial ca- 
reer. . . . He is a man of matured opinions and strong 
convictions with the full courage thereof. No man is 
more insensible to public clamor of the passionate, 
wrong-headed kind, yet none more ready to support 
worthy causes with his voice and all the powers of his 
mind. . . . Progressives will be inclined to call him a 
reactionary. The description is inappropriate. Mr. Mc- 
Call does believe in the Constitution and in the inde- 
pendence of the judiciary. He has faith in many prin- 
ciples and institutions of government that came into 
being longer ago than last summer. But he understands 
the sober-minded people of the United States. He knows 
the needs of the country. One of its needs is more 
men like Samuel W. McCall in the Senate. 

The most distinguished citizen of the district 
which Mr. McCall represented in Congress so 
long, President Eliot, expressed himself in favor 
of Mr. McCall's election in a letter containing 
this passage : — 

On constitutional and judicial questions Mr. McCall 
is conservative, like the great majority of the people of 
Massachusetts. In regard to the industrial, financial, 
and social reforms in which Massachusetts is sincerely 
interested and has long been a leader, Mr. McCall's 
position is that of a reasonable, prudent, open-minded 
man, who wishes to avoid doing harm while trying to 
do good. In general, Mr. McCall is an independent 
thinker, who has the courage of his convictions, and is 
willing to be in a minority for the time being, and so 
40 



Chiefly BioGRArniCAL 

makes the action of the majority wiser and more likely 
to be durable. It is of high importance that men of this 
sort should be kept in Congress. 

Charles Francis Adams also printed and widely 
circulated a strong appeal for the election of Mr. 
McCall. 

The " Springfield Republican," in comment- 
ing upon President Eliot's letter, said that among 
all the aspirants for senatorial honors in Massa- 
chusetts " Congressman McCall is conspicuously 
the one favored by prominent citizens who are 
without interest in the matter bevond a de- 
sire that the best thing for the State may be 
done." 

It was before the day of the election of senators 
by popular vote. Indeed it was the last election in 
Massachusetts at which a United States senator 
was chosen by the Legislature. The contest in 
the Republican caucus was a long one and the 
balloting ran through four days. Mr. McCall 
was the leading candidate at the start, and at the 
end of the third day he lacked but a few votes of 
a majority of the caucus, but at the last he failed 
to receive the nomination. Xo sooner was the 
contest ended than suggestions of further polit- 
ical honors for him began to be made. Massa- 
chusetts felt that the most distinguished man 
whom she had sent to the House of Representa- 

41 



Samuel W. McCall 

tives for many years must not be allowed to 
withdraw from public life. From all parts of the 
State came demands that he accept the nomina- 
tion for Governor. For the time, however, JMr. 
McCall determined to remain in private life. 
He had literary engagements which would fully 
occupy him, and to be relieved of official cares 
of anv sort would give him a freedom such as 
he had not known for nearly a quarter of a cen- 
tury. 

On the last day of Mr. McCall's service in 
the House, his colleagues by unanimous consent 
yielded him the floor, and he pronounced a brief 
speech of farewell which in its gentle humor and 
lofty idealism was typical of all his public utter- 
ances. He said : — 

Air. Speaker, if I were to indulge in anything in the 
nature of a valedictory and impose it on the House, I 
should perhaps follow recent precedents rather than my 
own inclination, and I should feel that what I might 
say would suggest by contrast rather than by resem- 
blance the wit of my genial colleague from Massachu- 
setts and the grace and eloquence of my fair-haired 
friend from Pennsylvania. " Positively last appearances " 
are under suspicion. A farewell address which is en- 
gagingly spoken is apt to defeat its object, because it is 
liable to incite the people to take political action which 
may make it necessary to repeat the performance. 
[Laughter.] 

42 



Chif.flv Biographical 

T am not thinking of making that kind of address, 
but as I am about to leave the House to-dav, I thought 
I would like to say a few words to the members with 
whom I ha\e been associated so long. I sav simpiv this 
to the members of the House individually, that I shall 
be entirely satisfied if their respect for me is equal to 
mv respect for them. [Applause.] 

Of the House as a whole, I would say I reverence 
its structure and its place in our Constitution ; but it 
seems to me it might occupy a more powerful practical 
place, and that with its democratic composition and 
with the popular character of our Government it rests 
with the House itself to say whether or not it shall be 
the dominating organ in our svstem of Government. 

In mv twenty years of service here I have voted 
against a great many measures that finalh- became laws : 
and if I had any particular regret to-night in that re- 
spect, it would be that I had not voted against more of 
them, because I believe there is much truth in what 
Mr. Burke said, that repeal is more blessed than enact- 
ment. We are acquiring a facilitv for passing laws; we 
are making such encroachments upon our own freedom 
that I trust those of you who remain here will do what 
you can to postpone the day, now threatening to come 
speedilv, when a multiplicity of statutes shall mar the 
fair image of our liberties. If we are to sacrifice our 
freedom upon the altar of piled-up statutes, then it 
will only be left for us to strive to attain some such 
loftv but difficult refuge as that portraved in the lines 
of a noble Greek poet, nobly rendered by Gilbert 
Murray : — 

43 



Samuel W. McCall 

" But the world with a great wind blows. 

Blowing to beautiful things; 
On amid dark and light. 

Till life, through the trammclings 
Of laws that are not the right. 

Breaks clear and pure, and sings 
Glorying to God in the height." 

[Applause.] 

When Mr. McCall retired from Congress the 
Republican Party in Massachusetts was in a bad 
way. It is not unusual for the Democrats to elect 
their candidate for Governor, but he seldom ob- 
tains a reelection, and until recently there has 
been no instance of two Democratic Governors 
in succession. But beginning in 1910, the Demo- 
crats carried the governorship in five successive 
elections and with two different candidates. Part 
of their success could be attributed to the defec- 
tion of the Progressives from the Republican 
Party, but there were also other causes. As the 
party went down to defeat year after year, it 
grew disheartened and discouraged, and it be- 
came evident that the strongest man in the ranks 
must be drafted into service if the party was to 
regain control of the State. Mr. McCall was 
urged to accept the nomination. In 1913 he re- 
fused, but the next year, when the matter was 
pressed upon him again, he agreed to accept pro- 
vided the nomination came to him without a 
44 



Chiefly Biographical 

contest. In so doing he rcali/cd that he was 
probably entering upon a losing tight. Indeed, 
he was urged by many of his friends to announce 
that he was a candidate for the nomination for 
two years. This, however, would have amounted 
to a confession of defeat at the beginning of the 
campaign and was not to be thought of. 

The contest upon which Mr. McCall entered 
in 1914 was a difficult one. His chief opponent 
was the most popular Democrat who has ap- 
peared in Massachusetts politics since the davs 
of Governor Russell. The breach with the Pro- 
gressives had not yet healed and this deprived 
the Republican candidate of much support which 
he would otherwise have received. But Mr. Mc- 
Call fought the campaign with vigor, and a few 
days before the election he predicted that he 
would receive 200,000 votes. The returns showed 
that he was only a few hundred votes in error. 
While he was defeated, he had raised the Repub- 
lican vote from 116,705 of the year previous to 
198,627, and had attracted so many Progressives 
back to the fold that the ultimate merging of 
that party with the Republicans was seen to be 
imminent. This notable achievement made his 
renomination in 19 15 natural and just. While 
he was not accorded this honor without a con- 
test, a reunited party was successful at the polls, 

45 



Samuel W. McCall 

and the Republicans elected their Governor. 
Mr. McCall received 235,843 votes, which was 
the largest vote with a single exception ever cast 
for a Governor in Massachusetts. The vote of 
the Progressive Party was so small that it lost 
its legal status as a party. When Mr. McCall 
was inaugurated on January 6, 19 16, the Repub- 
lican Party for the first time since 1909 found 
itself in complete control of the Executive de- 
partment of the State as well as of both branches 
of the Legislature. 

The accession of the new Governor brought 
into office a man to whose training several sections 
of the country had contributed. Born in Penn- 
sylvania, he had passed his boyhood amidst the 
prairies of northwestern Illinois, and then, con- 
trary to the general current which carried men 
westward, he had cast in his fortunes with Mas- 
sachusetts, where his long career in the public 
service had been fittingly recognized by his elec- 
tion to the highest office in the Commonwealth. 



CHAPTER II 

TWENTY YEARS OF LEGISLATION 

MR. Ml CALL took his scat in Congress 
August 5, 189J, at the special session 
called by President Cleveland for the repeal of 
the Silver Purchase Act of 1890. This law had 
not had its expected effect in maintaining the 
price of silver. After a short rise, the price of sil- 
ver bullion had steadily fallen. While the law 
was in effect more than ^140,000,000 of treasury 
notes had been issued for the purchase of silver, 
which lav uncoined in the vaults. Hundreds of 
millions of greenbacks were in circulation, as well 
as hundreds of millions of silver dollars, which 
were worth inherently onlv a fraction of their 
nominal value. For the maintenance at par and 
the redemption of all this money, there was a 
gold reserve which, for the first time since 1879, 
had fallen below $100,000,000. There was a gen- 
eral distrust of the Government's ability to main- 
tain the gold standard, and a financial panic en- 
sued. President Cleveland summoned Congress 
and recommended as a measure of relief that the 
Silver Purchase Act of 1890 be repealed. There 

47 



Samuel W. McCall 

was much doubt as to whether this would be done. 
In fact, if President Cleveland had to rely on the 
votes of his own party, it was known that it could 
not be accomplished. A majority of the Demo- 
crats were already infected with those heresies 
which were to lead the party to its downfall in 
1896 and make it a negligible quantity for a 
dozen years. But the situation was altogether too 
serious for partisanship. The Republicans gave 
the President the support which was denied him 
by his own party, and the Silver Purchase Act 
was repealed. In the Republican State Conven- 
tion in Massachusetts in 1892, Mr. McCall, as 
chairman of the Committee on Resolutions, had 
brought in a resolution in favor of this action. He 
was therefore committed to this course when he 
took his seat in Congress, and his first speech 
was in support of the recommendation of Presi- 
dent Cleveland. He said: — 

I agree entirely with the proposition advanced in this 
House by most of the opponents of this bill, that the 
question at issue is monometallism against bimetallism; 
but I do not agree with those gentlemen as to which 
side represents monometallism and which side represents 
bimetallism. To my mind it is as clear as the sunshine 
that a continuance of the policy of the Government in 
purchasing 4,500,000 ounces of bullion each month, 
or the free coinage of silver at any of the ratios in the 

48 



Twenty Years of Legislation 

amendments pending before this House, will result in 
this country's becoming a monometallic and not a bi- 
metallic country, and in our having as our standard of 
value the amount of silver coined in the silver dollar. . . . 

During the three years in which we have been upon 
this policy our Treasury has parted with nearly $ioo,- 
000,000 of its gold, and the reason it has not parted 
with precisely the amount of gold that it has purchased 
in silver is, in my judgment, due to the extraordinary 
measures pursued by it during the last two years to keep 
it. If we look at the matter from an international stand- 
point wc find this remarkable coincidence, that up to 
July 1, 1893, we had purchased 3140,500,000 of silver 
bullion, and we had exported from this country 5141,- 
000,000 of gold. The effect of this policy then, I say, 
is precisely what we might expect it would be — that 
as we have parted with our gold we have piled up silver. 

It will not require any very long time, it will not be 
a very distant day when this Government, at this rate, 
will have parted with so much of its gold that it will be 
compelled to suspend gold payments, and the result will 
thus inevitably be the expulsion of all our gold from cir- 
culation, and the placing of the country upon a silver 
standard. 

And that is the essential question at issue here to- 
day. What standard do we propose to maintain in this 
country? What is our dollar? You might infer that a 
" dollar " was simply a fiat of the Government, an um- 
bra, a piece of that very intangible and unmeasurable 
thing called the "faith of the Government." . . . 

But there is this significant thing in the situation, this 

49 



Samuel W. McCall 

extraordinary coincidence, that what we call our dollar 
is worth precisely, and has been since the first day of 
January, 1879, the amount of gold in the gold dollar. 
That means simply that we are upon a gold standard. 
That means that the gold dollar is, in effect, the dol- 
lar of ultimate redemption, and every one of our dollars, 
whatever may be the intrinsic value of the material of 
which it is made or upon which it is stamped, whether 
it is worthless paper or whether it is silver, is worth pre- 
cisely the value of the amount of gold in a gold dollar. 
That results from the fact that this Government has 
since 1879 declared its purpose to convert every kind 
of its dollars into any other kind that any person may 
desire. The consequence has been that so long as it 
could maintain payment upon the basis of the gold dol- 
lar, which is the most expensive dollar, that would be 
our standard of value. But when we see the gold flow- 
ing from our Treasury we see that the Government is 
appoaching the point where, although it may have the 
willingness, it cannot have the ability to redeem its 
promises, and when the time arrives then it will have 
to go to the basis of the next most valuable dollar. . . . 

He then points out that during the past twenty 
years, many governments had ceased to coin sil- 
ver and at the same time the world output of 
that metal had increased. The inevitable result 
was a fall in price. 

I do not imagine that it is necessary here to repeat 
any of the old classical arguments about the desirability 

50 



TwrxTv Vfars of Lfgislation 

of the qdlii staiulard as against the silver standard; and 
I mav sav here that I take no stock whatever in the 
exploded theory that we can have a double standard. I 
do not believe you can have any double standard of 
value any more than vou can have a double quart meas- 
ure or a double pound weight. It seems to me that we 
must adopt some standard in value; and while, from 
the nature of the case, we cannot get anything that is 
inflexible, that will never rise or decrease in value, it is 
our duty to adopt that at least which will put us on 
terms of equality with the other trading nations of the 
world, and which will possess, in the highest degree 
obtainable, the quality of stability. 

If we take the value of gold as compared with labor, 
which I think is fairly the unit of production, we shall 
see that gold and labor during the last twenty years 
have maintained their relations to each other, and that 
wages expressed in terms of gold are at least equal 
to-day to what they were twenty years ago, if not 
greater. . . . 

There is another reason in favor of the gold stand- 
ard besides the reason that it is the better standard. 
The gold standard is the existing standard in this coun- 
try, and it should require some very potent reason to 
justify us in changing that standard to another. . . . 

So long as this Government is able, and so long as 
the people believe it able, to redeem all its money in 
gold, people will be entirely controlled in the kind of 
money they select by considerations of mere conven- 
ience. But the moment the point is reached when 
it appears that the Government may not be able to 

5» 



Samuel W. McCall 

redeem all its money in gold, but that some holders of 
its obligations will be oblio;ed to take a less valuable 
metal, then convenience gives place to fear; the bill 
holder becomes timid ; and from the effect of this im- 
pulse of fear there is a locking up of our money from 
actual use. 

I say, in conclusion, that if we want to maintain the 
two metals in circulation here, if we want to maintain 
the gold standard in this country, if we do not desire 
to drive from our business every drop of the rich, red, 
golden blood that vitalizes every civilized nation, if we 
do not wish to continue this paralysis of business, and 
subject our farmers to the system of exchange that is 
chiefly responsible for the degradation and practical 
slavery of the Indian peasant, we will have to repeal 
the act of 1890 unconditionally. And while we may 
not restore confidence in the minds of the people at one 
blow, we will go very far towards remedying the de- 
pression which has settled upon all of the industries of 
the country. [Applause.] 

There are few members of Congress whose 
first speech in that body has attracted such wide 
attention as did this. William Everett, a keen 
critic, who was a member of the House at the 
time, said in the discussion that Mr. McCall had 
proved himself thoroughly worthy to speak for 
the district in which Harvard College stood. 

Many years afterward Mr. McCall said of 
President Cleveland's conduct on this occasion: 
52 



Twenty Ykars of Legislation 

Mr. Cleveland displaved a resolute courage in press- 
ing the measure, hut he achieved a large measure of un- 
popularity with his partv, which was in favor of free 
coinage as was afterward clearly shown. That his ef- 
forts prevented the currency of the country from falling 
speedily to the silver standard, there can be no doubt. 
The contest was not finally won. Other battles remained 
to be foufrht. But it would have been lost but for the 
Silver Purchase repeal. And those who believe that in- 
calculable damage would have come upon the country 
by the depreciation of its currency, and its departure 
from the established standard of the civilized world, will 
hold in grateful remembrance the patriotic self-sacrifice 
and the stern and heroic courage of Grover Cleveland. 

Three years after the repeal of the Silver 
Purchase Act came the Bryan campaign on a 
free-silver platform. Mr. McCall carried the 
war into that part of the country where the sen- 
timent for free silver was strongest, and delivered 
a series of addresses in Iowa, Nebraska, and Col- 
orado, and on the Pacific slope. According to 
the newspapers of the day his arguments made a 
deep impression. 

In 1898 the money question again came be- 
fore Congress, when the Senate passed a concur- 
rent resolution to the effect that the bonds of the 
United States were payable, at the option of the 
Government, in silver dollars containing 4r2. 5 
grains of standard silver, and that to restore to 

53 



Samuel W. McCall 

its coinasfe such silver coins as a legal tender in 
payment of the Government's bonds is " not a 
violation of the public faith nor in derogation 
of the rights of the public creditor." In the de- 
bate on the resolution in the House, where it 
was overwhelmingly rejected, Mr. McCall said: 

In standing in opposition to this resolution, and also 
in favor of the maintenance of the gold standard, the 
Representatives from Massachusetts are not unmindful 
of the history of the State they represent. They remem- 
ber that during the war of the rebellion, when that State 
might have paid the interest upon its bonds in a greatly 
depreciated currency, it paid that interest in gold, and 
as a result of its scrupulous honor within ten years we 
have seen the bonds of that Commonwealth selling in 
the public markets of this country, subject though they 
were to taxation, above the untaxed bonds of the Na- 
tional Government. 

A high public credit is not merely ornamental, but it 
is also in the highest degree useful. It both sustains and 
decorates a nation. It gives it the means of equipping 
armies, of building fleets, and of maintaining a struggle 
for its national existence. The great Junius never ut- 
tered a more brilliant epigram nor a greater truth than 
when, speaking of the public credit of England, he said, 
"Public credit is wealth; public honor is security. The 
feather that adorns the royal bird supports its flight. 
Strip it of its plumage and you fix it to the earth." [Ap- 
plause on the Republican side.] 

You are in a business that is not only paltry and mis- 

54 



Twenty Years of Legislation 

enable, but disastrous as well, when you would utter 
again this forgotten expression of the emotion of twenty 
years ago to tarnish the fair fame of your country. 

The repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase 
Act was by hir the most important legislative 
achievement of the first Congress in which Mr. 
McCall served. Another measure bearing upon 
the finances ot the Government which was intro- 
duced at this Congress was an act permitting the 
States to tax the legal-tender notes of the Fed- 
eral Government. It was doubtful whether Con- 
gress had the constitutional right thus to place 
the agencies of the Federal Government at the 
mercy of the States, and, whether it had the 
power or not, the wisdom of such a measure was 
more than doubtful. In the debate on July 6, 
1894, Mr. McCall said: — 

Should the States or the lesser local governments of 
this Union be permitted to tax the agencies and instru- 
mentalities of the National Government? Should we 
permit them to tax the obligations of that Government, 
which are usually employed by it in emergencies to 
raise money and to preserve its very existence ? The 
power to tax is the very highest incident of sovereignty. 
The power to tax involves the power to destroy. If 
Congress can grant to the States the power to impose a 
limited tax on our national obligations, it can grant them 
the power of free and unrestricted taxation. If the 

55 



Samuel W. McCall 

authority were granted to the States to tax the bonds 
or the demand notes of the National Government, they 
would be given the power, practically, to destroy these 
obligations, and consequently the Government itself. . . . 

The proposition of this bill is hostile to the public 
credit. The Government, of course, will be able to bor- 
row money more cheaply if its bonds are not subject to 
taxation. But you say the greenback is not a bond ; it 
is simply a demand note. The case is then stronger for 
the non-taxing of the demand note. In the case of a 
bond, the Government borrows money by paying inter- 
est. In the case of a greenback, it borrows money with- 
out paying interest. The greenback was a forced loan 
made in a grave emergency when the Government was 
in danger of destruction in the time of war, and its value 
was increased by the pledge of the Government, written 
upon our statute books, that it should not be subject to 
taxation, 

I say that so far as the exemption from taxation is 
concerned, the greenback is surrounded with more sa- 
cred obligations than the bond, and if in any time of 
war or disaster that may in the future fall upon this 
country it should be necessary for it to make another 
emergency loan and to ask the money of the people 
without giving them any interest on their debt, it would 
be vastly to the advantage of the Government if it 
should religiously have observed every obligation with 
reference to the greenback. . . . 

You surrender a point vital to the sovereignty of this 
nation when you subject its obligations to the tax- 
gatherers of the States and municipalities. The fine 

56 



Twenty Years of Legislation 

sentinic'iit for the national honor and the national faith, 
especially shown in the support of this very greenback, 
and which stands to the immortal honor of the Repub- 
lican party, is apparently disregarded, and the flag which 
has so proudly floated at the mast-head in every storm 
of war is hauled down after the ship has reached the 
peaceful port. 

At this Congress Mr. McCail introduced a 
bill providing for a commission to promote uni- 
formity of state laws in matters of common in- 
terest. The measure was defeated, however, be- 
cause of the extreme adherence to the doctrine 
of state rights on the part of the Democrats, 
who controlled the House. 

When Mr. McCall entered Congress the merit 
system of appointment to office was still on the 
defensive. Members did not hesitate openly to 
stigmatize its advocates as " foul-mouthed dema- 
gogues " and " Miss Nancys," while such high- 
minded leaders as Carl Schurz and George Wil- 
liam Curtis were even denounced as " traitors." 
The merit system has become so well established 
that invective such as this is now seldom heard 
in Congress, even though the actual administra- 
tion of the civil service still witnesses many re- 
grettable lapses from the principles on which it 
should be based. President Harrison showed his 
faith in the principle of the merit system and his 

57 



Samuel W. McCall 

sincere desire to make it effective by appoint- 
ing to the office of Civil Service Commissioner 
Theodore Roosevelt, who had taken an active 
part in securing the establishment of the system. 
Of his achievements in that office, Mr. McCall 
said in 1894 : — 

A great deal was said yesterday concerning the Civil 
Service Commission, and a good deal more of Mr. 
Roosevelt; but concerning that gentleman I noticed 
that the charges were very general and very vague. It 
was alleged against him that he was a Republican. I 
regard that as a matter mutually complimentary to Mr. 
Roosevelt and to the Republican Party. But this I 
think can be said, that no man has made any specific 
issue with Mr. Roosevelt under this civil service law, 
be he Republican or be he Democrat, who has cared to 
repeat the experiment. I believe that from the founda- 
tion of this Government to the present day there has 
been no officer who has more zealously, more loyally, 
and with a finer public spirit performed the duties of 
his office than Theodore Roosevelt has performed the 
duties of Civil Service Commissioner. [Applause on the 
Republican side.] 

In 1898, when the merit system was severely 
attacked in the House, Mr. McCall made a 
speech in which he entered into an elaborate ex- 
amination of the principles upon which the civil 
service is based and the practice of the govern- 
ment since the days of Washington. 
58 



Twenty Years of Legislation 

I have listened with a good deal of astonishment to 
the course of this debate. We have heard the old spoils 
system proclaimed here in all its pristine and original 
corruption, and as vigorously as it was ever pronounced 
or put in practice by Andrew Jackson. . . . The wide 
range of the debate makes it necessary to revert not 
merely to these early teachings, but to some of the pri- 
mary notions of popular government. When George 
Washington was put at the head of the Government 
there may have been factions, but there were no parties, 
and it was one of the public sorrows of that great man that 
he could not check the tendency, so certain and so irre- 
sistible in populargovcrnment,to the formation of parties. 

John Adams succeeded to the office and the political 
views of George Washington, and the first appearance 
of political parties in their full development was during 
his term. Thomas Jefferson was elected President after 
a contest as heated as any political contest we wage 
to-day. His friends demanded to be recognized with 
offices. They said that they had been excluded from the 
government, and they demanded that the incumbents 
of the offices should be removed and that they be put in 
their places. 

Thomas Jefferson wrote — and I commend this to 
our Democratic friends who make him the patron saint 
of their party — a letter to Dr. Rush about three weeks 
after his inauguration, and he declared that his party 
should come in for the vacancies that might occur un- 
til something like an equilibrium between the parties 
should be restored, but that he would not create va- 
cancies for the purpose of filling them with his. sup- 

59 



Samuel W. McCall 

porters. "Of the thousands of ofBcers, therefore," said 
he, " in the United States, a very few individuals, prob- 
ably not twenty, will be removed, and those only for 
doing what thev ought not to have done. I know that in 
stopping thus short in the career of removals I shall give 
great offense to many of my friends. That torrent will 
be pressing me heavily, but my maxim is ' Fiat justitia, 
ruat coelum.' " In his eight years of office he made only 
thirty-nine removals. 

In Madison's Administration there were but five 
removals, in Monroe's eight, and in John Quincy 
Adams's two. So that during the first forty years of this 
Government, of men holding office there were removed 
only about sixty, all told, and a committee of this 
House, which carefully investigated the facts, reported 
that during these forty years not a single man was re- 
moved from office on account of his political views. 
Then Jackson came in. He had a verbal record upon 
this question. No man had uttered more lofty declara- 
tions against the evils of patronage than he. One of the 
last things he did as Senator from Tennessee was to in- 
troduce an amendment to the Constitution prohibiting 
a second term to the President, in order to avoid the 
misuse of the offices. He was finally elected after two 
very warm contests. His passions were aroused. He 
was a man who believed a political enemy was a per- 
sonal foe. He had plenty of bad and interested advisers, 
although his hot zeal needed no kindling. He made in- 
discriminate removals and looted the public service in a 
way that has made him the envy and despair of every 
spoilsman from that day to this. 

60 



Twenty Years of Legislation 

His course was condemned by the greatest and pur- 
est statesmen of both parties living at that time. Henry 
Clay condemned it. He said that course followed out 
would destroy popular government and establish a des- 
potism. Daniel W^ebster condemned it. Calhoun con- 
demned it, and it was not supported by any prominent 
man who is to-dav known as a statesman. 

Jackson's doctrine was as forcibly stated by Swart- 
wout, of New York, as by Marcy. He declared soon 
after Jackson was elected that " no damned rascal who 
tried to keep Adams in and Jackson out was entitled to 
the least mercy from that Administration save that of 
hanging." Swartwout well illustrated in his own person 
the new system then inaugurated. He was made col- 
lector of the port of New York and promptly proceeded 
to make wav not onlv with his own salary, but with the 
public money of the Government. 

The proscription put in practice by Jackson invited 
counter proscription from the other partv, so that as the 
Administrations alternated from that time until the time 
of the Civil War, each Administration tried to get even 
with the one that had preceded it. And yet an attempt 
was made by some Administrations to do away with the 
spoils system. . . . 

Let us, then, get the spirit of our own history. Omit- 
ting the terms of Lincoln and Johnson, when the great 
upheaval of the Civil War and the stupendous problems 
which followed it rendered a thought of this reform out 
of the question, we hnd the spirit of our first forty 
years against the spoils idea, and the last thirty years 
characterized by an earnest effort on the part of all 

6i 



Samuel W. McCall 

parties to return to the earlier and better practices of 
the fathers of the Constitution. 

So, I ask you which example is the more command- 
ing — that of Washington and Jefferson and Adams and 
Madison, of Grant and Garfield and Hayes and AIc- 
Kinley, illustrating and adorning seventy years of our 
national life, or the proscription of Jackson, followed 
bv the counter proscription of his successors, covering 
only thirty years of our existence and denounced by the 
greatest statesmen of that era ? 

He fortified his argument by appealing to the 
experience of England, where, after a long fight 
under the leadership of such men as John Bright 
and Gladstone, the public service was opened to 
all classes in the community and any man might 
aspire to any post for which he was qualified. 
The argument in favor of the merit system was 
concisely stated and both parties were urged to 
join in support of these principles which would 
do so much to purify public life. 

I will enumerate a few of the advantages of civil 
service reform. In the first place it will secure a more 
efficient and economical public service. In the next 
place, it gi\'es to all who desire to enter the service an 
equal opportunity through the open door of merit and 
takes away from the privileged few the power to pay 
their political debts with places in the people's service. 
It lessens the power of bossism and favoritism, already 

62 



Twenty Ykars of Lf.gisi.atiom 

too strong in this country. It dries up most fruitful 
sources of angry political contentions. 

It takes away from Congressmen executive powers 
which they have so long usurped and gives to them the 
time to perform the duties which are theirs under the 
Constitution and which they were elected to discharge. 
It preserves the independence of the legislative hranch 
of the Government, which is destroyed if members of 
Congress are continually going to the White House 
and importuning the President for offices. I can show 
you more than one instance where appointments have 
been made for the purpose of pushing legislation 
through the two Houses of Congress. And then it 
secures to popular elections their real dignity and value, 
by enabling the people to express their will in the 
choice of political officers free from the corrupting 
influence of hundreds of thousands of placemen on the 
one hand and hundreds of thousands of place hunters 
on the other. 

This is a question in which both sides of the House, 
aye, the whole American people, are interested, The 
Democrats believe that they have vital principles, and 
that if the people can fairly pass upon them they will 
pronounce in their tavor, and that those policies and 
principles will be put in force for the benefit of the 
country. We believe also in the policies and principles 
which we advocate on this side. Let us then join hands 
and take away the corrupting influence of these thou- 
sands of nonpolitical offices, and then the policies which 
you represent and the policies which we represent can 
be submitted in the great constitutional forum and can 

63 



Samuel W. McCall 

be decided by a free and unbought expression of the will 
of the American people. [Loud applause on the Repub- 
lican side.] 

A subject of the first importance to the com- 
mercial world is the law governing bankruptcy. 
The Constitution vests in Congress the power to 
enact a uniform rule on the subject, but during 
most of our history, its regulation has been 
left to the States. From 1800 to 1803, from 
1 841 to 1843, and again from 1867 to 1878 stat- 
utes in exercise of the power of Congress were 
in force, but in nothing has the jealousy of na- 
tional authority been manifested more strongly 
than in opposition to the attempts to place bank- 
ruptcy under the control of a Federal law. The 
insolvency laws of the several States are neces- 
sarily limited in their operation to those transac- 
tions over which the States enacting them have 
jurisdiction, and it must furthermore be said that 
many of them were framed with little regard to 
the just rights of creditors. In 1898, when the 
Bankruptcy Act which is now in force was pend- 
ing in Congress, Mr. McCall said: — 

To-day New York and Charleston, Baltimore and 
New Orleans, are nearer together than, at the time of 
the framing of the Constitution, Boston was to Salem 
or to Providence. The telegraph, the telephone, and 

64 



TWKN TV YkARS of LEGISLATION 

the frequent fast-flving mails have almost annihilated 
distance, and our nearly i8o,000 miles of railroad en- 
able us now, in an incredibly short space of time, to 
transfer from one State to another great masses of 
freight and merchandise which one hundred years ago 
were as immovable as mountains. The marvelous instru- 
mentalities of modern commerce, undreamed of one 
hundred years ago, have compelled us to become com- 
mercially one people. State lines are eliminated. The 
merchant in New York makes a trade, in his own office 
and within a minute of time, with the merchant in 
Chicago, and it becomes absolutely necessary for us to 
exercise this great power entrusted to us, this great duty 
enjoined on us, the performance and exercise of which 
have become so vital to the proper regulation of com- 
merce and trade. . . . 

We have to-day a vast number of men in this coun- 
try who are hopelessly in debt. This bill will set them 
upon their feet. It will also provide a rule for the future, 
so that the merchant will more readily send his mer- 
chandise across state lines. He will be willing to run the 
chances of mismanagement or misfortune of his debtor 
when he would not, in addition to that risk, run the 
chances of rascality and the preferences that might be 
secured under local laws, or, if he did, he would charge 
for it. Business is done with reference to all the risks 
to which it is subject. If there is an extra risk by rea- 
son of the lack of just remedies, that risk is added to 
the price of the goods; it is paid in the end by the con- 
sumer, so that in the last analysis the cost of rascality 
is borne by the people. . . . 

65 



Samuel W. McCall 

The time has come for us to lift a heavy millstone 
from the neck of industry ; to bid the hundreds of thou- 
sands of our financially maimed and crippled fellow 
citizens to get upon their feet and walk, and to provide 
an open highway over which the overburdened debtor 
of to-day and of the future may walk from the land of 
hopeless struggle and financial bondage into a position 
of freedom. 

Congress has many times discussed the subject 
of subsidies for American shipping, either for the 
purpose of building up the American merchant 
marine or for facilitating commercial relations 
with other countries by providing adequate mail 
service. The latter consideration is one of special 
importance, and when a measure designed to as- 
sist the establishment of mail routes to South 
America was before the House, in 1907, Mr. 
McCall said: — 

The academic speeches which have been made about 
subsidy are very interesting, and I agree with them on 
general principles, but they do not deal at all with the 
question involved in establishing these South American 
lines. It is a power prescribed by the Constitution to 
establish mail routes. That is a governmental power, 
and if it is " subsidy " to carry our mails to South 
America in the first instance at more than the Govern- 
ment receives for postage, then why was it not " sub- 
sidy" when the Government established and maintained 
hundreds of routes in advance of civilization, for the 
66 



Twr.NTV Ykars of Legislation 

dcvcliipmcnt of the coiinrrv, until the time came when 
the postage received from the routes would pay for their 
maintenance? If this is "subsidy" then it is gross "sub- 
sidy " to maintain the rural free delivery, which absorbs 
all the postage received from the routes and at least 
510,000,000 more each year. So I assert that the ob- 
jection of subsidy cannot be raised to this proposition. 
The question simplv is: Is it in accord with a sound 
public policy to establish these South American routes 
— and that is the particular part of the hill to which I 
am now speaking — and is the compensation reasonable ? 

\Ve are not so insular and contracted, Mr. Chair- 
man, that we will establish liberal mail facilities where 
the letter starts in the United States and its destination 
is in the United States, and yet will deny our people the 
same liberal treatment when they desire to trade or to 
communicate with the people of other lands. The inter- 
national mail system rests upon the same high public 
ground as the domestic mail system, with this in addi- 
tion, that the former is in the interest of peace, that it 
will tend to bind the people of the ditfercnt nations to- 
gether and create a community of interest which is a 
powerful influence against war; and in that view it sub- 
serves a high purpose which is not especially subserved 
by the service in the United States. 

There may be some incidental benefit connected with 
establishing these mail routes, but I do not think gentle- 
men should shudder and be greatly alarmed lest as a 
result of this policy a few ships should be built in Ameri- 
can shipyards. The total cost of all the fleets established 
by this bill will probably not exceed two battleships. 

67 



Samuel W. McCall 

This is not a very munificent provision for the ship- 
building industry. From the standpoint of peace, these 
couriers of peace traversing the ocean will be a more 
powerful agency against war than the two battleships 
would be. 

Another measure of a somewhat prosaic de- 
scription, but which will do a great deal to en- 
hance the efficiency of the House as a legislative 
body, owes its origin and adoption to Mr. McCall. 
This is the bill for rearranging the hall of the 
House. The chamber in which the House sits is 
altogether too large to serve as the meeting-place 
of a deliberative assembly. Since the members 
can hear very little of what is being said, noise 
and confusion result, and only a few members of 
stentorian lung power possess the physical abil- 
itv to transmit their thoughts to their colleagues. 
This has a bad effect on debate. " It is hard," said 
Lord Bryce, " to talk hard good sense at the top 
of vour voice." The act introduced by Mr. Mc- 
Call provides that the desks for members shall 
be removed, and that the area of the chamber 
shall be greatly reduced. The carrying-out of 
these alterations will make the sessions of the 
House seem less like an open-air meeting, and 
will enable the members to make themselves 
heard by their colleagues. 

In 1 91 2 Mr. McCall introduced into Con- 
68 



Twenty Years of Legislation 

gress a proposal to amend the Constitution by 
conferring upon Congress the power to pass uni- 
form laws regulating the hours of labor. The 
comment upon this suggestion showed how easily 
a public man's utterances may be turned against 
him and his motives misconstrued. Many news- 
papers pretended to believe that Mr. McCall 
had been converted from a conservative into a 
radical, and that he was now abandoning his ad- 
vocacy of the reserved rights of the States in fivor 
of a centralized government in Washington. But 
a study of Mr. McCall's arguments upon the 
Constitution and the necessity of observing its 
provisions discloses nothing to indicate that he 
thought the Constitution was an unchanging and 
unchangeable instrument. His argument simply 
was that when the need for change became ap- 
parent, the change should be made by a straight- 
forward amendment and not bv a forced and 
twisted construction. He was convinced that 
manufacturers in States where the hours of labor 
and the conditions of work are prescribed by law 
could not compete upon an equality with manu- 
facturers in States which had no such regula- 
tions. 

The obvious remedy is to confer authority upon 
the national legislature to deal with a subject which 
is of national importance. The advocacy of such 

69 



Samuel W. McCall 

an amendment was In no way inconsistent with 
his insistence upon the recognition of the re- 
served rights of the States. 

One of the most important subjects that have 
come before Congress since the Civil War is the 
regulation of interstate transportation. The inti- 
mate relation that exists between industry and 
transportation, and the control which great rail- 
way systems exert over the fortunes not only of 
individuals and corporations but of cities and 
States make the question of the regulation of 
transportation agencies one of profound interest 
to every part of the country. Unfortunately the 
field is a rich one for the demagogue. Baiting 
the railways has been a popular sport in many 
localities, and one who ventured to question the 
wisdom of every fresh twist of the thumb-screw 
and to ask for the same degree of justice for the 
owners of the railways which is extended to other 
forms of property Invited denunciation as a tool 
of the Interests and an enemy of the people. Un- 
doubtedly there were evils in railway management 
which demanded correction, and even if no evil 
could be shown It is doubtful if it was in the pub- 
lic Interest to allow the prosperity of individuals 
and of communities to beat the mercy of groups 
of men who were not under public control. Rail- 
way regulation is necessary and proper, but this 
70 



Twenty Years of Legislation 

is far from saving that every measure introduced 
tor that purpose should be adopted. 

Mr. McCall was opposed to trenching too far 
upon the management of privately owned rail- 
wavs, because such a poHcv would tend to bring 
about government ownership. As to this he said 
in 1905: — 

The ownership of transportation lines would give the 
National Government the ready means to usurp the 
insignificant powers remaining to the States. One party 
would demand that the railroads should not be operated 
on Sundays, another party would contend that the Gov- 
ernment should not transport intoxicating liquors, still 
another would claim that veterans or other classes should 
ride free, and others would urge that men engaged in 
kinds of business at the time obnoxious should not be 
permitted to ride at all, and vou would enter upon an 
era of extravagance, of favoritism, and of centralization 
of power at Washington which would be subversive of 
our Government or would radicailv change its char- 
acter. Take off the lid from this Pandora's box and you 
will see everything escape except hope. 

The great purpose of the Interstate Commerce 
Act of I 887 was the prevention of discrimination 
between individuals and localities. There has 
never been much complaint in any part of the 
United States that rates were too high. That 
question has seldom been raised except when an 

71 



Samuel W. McCall 

advance in rates was suggested. But discrimina- 
tion has been a real evil, very difficult to detect 
and to abolish. By rebates, by secret rates varying 
from the published rates, by industrial switches, 
private cars, refrigerator cars and numerous 
other devices, one shipper was given a preference 
over another. As the act of 1887 proved insuffi- 
cient to meet the evil, the Elkins law of 1903 
was passed, but for some years no serious attempt 
was made to enforce it. In his message of 1904, 
President Roosevelt discussed rebates and dis- 
criminations, and proposed as a remedy that the 
Interstate Commerce Commission be empowered 
to fix rates. Just why it would be any more diffi- 
cult for a railway to grant a rebate on a rate fixed 
bv the Commission than on a rate fixed by itself 
was not made apparent. 

In 1906 Congress enacted the Hepburn Act 
by which authority to fix rates was vested in the 
Interstate Commerce Commission. Mr. McCall 
had supported the Elkins Act of 1903, and had 
advocated that the Commerce Commission be 
made a prosecuting body with ample funds at its 
disposal for the purpose of carrying " before the 
courts in a summary fashion any rates which after 
investigation it believes to be unjust, unreason- 
able, or unequal." Let the number of judges be 
enlarged sufficiently to obtain speedy decisions, 

72 



Twenty Years of Legislation 

and then trust to the orderly proceedings of the 
courts to determine the rights involved. But he 
was opposed to the Hepburn Act. Not only 
did he think that the remedies which it pro- 
vided were not adapted to the removal of the 
evils at which they were directed, but that the 
bill involved a dangerous concentration of power 
in the National Government. We have often 
heard lately of "the little father at Washing- 
ton." He first made his appearance in Mr. 
McCall's speech of February 7, 1905: — 

The enormous concentration and pressure of power 
involved in the attempt to have the National Govern- 
ment run our railroads, and, as a result, those great 
engines that produce the articles of interstate com- 
merce, would be to engender here a heated center of 
despotism destructive of the last appearance of indi- 
vidual tVecdom. Liberty is only compatible in this 
country with keeping the management of their affairs 
near to the people, where thev can see how ihev are 
conducted. Distant as they are from Washington, they 
get merely the stage efi^ects, and the actor who is set 
down to play all the virtuous parts in the play mav be 
in fact the real villain. A system like ours, with the 
functions of government distributed among ditfercnt 
organs and localities, is tolerant in the highest decree 
of freedom, and the unshackled liberty of millions of 
men employing with the least restraint the faculties 
God has given them is what has produced our marvel- 

73 



Samuel W. McCall 

ous development. . . I do not care to see created at 
Washington a " little father " as there is one at St. 
Petersburg. For my part I prefer the American system 
of distributed power, with as much as possible left to 
the individual, rather than the Russian system of cen- 
tralized power. 

In his speech in opposition to the Hepburn 
Act, which was one of his most learned speeches 
and showed a wide acquaintance with the prac- 
tices of other countries as well as an intimate 
knowledge of the technicalities of rate-making, 
Mr. McCall said: — 

So far as favoritism is concerned, in every one of 
its forms I am opposed to it. I would have you enact 
against it the most drastic law which ingenuity could 
devise. And I would have the right of every man to a 
just, reasonable, and equal rate taken to the courts at 
the expense of the Government, in the first instance, 
and ultimately of the railroads, if they were held to be 
in the wrong, under every effective species of remedy, 
taken to that forum where Anglo-Saxon freedom has won 
its noblest triumphs. For my part I prefer the natural 
and beneficent liberty of the courts to the cast-iron reg- 
ulations of a commission. I would encourage proceed- 
ings such as that in Scotland, which for a differential 
given in good faith, took from a railroad company in 
damages and costs about $700,000. 

After examining the economic arguments ad- 
vanced in support of the bill, Mr. McCall con- 

74 



' Twenty Yfars of Lkgislation 

eluded his great speech by inquiring what effect 
such a law must have upon our system of con- 
stitutional liberty : — 

Wc pass laws here with an easy optimism and a 
profound faith that, so great arc the American people, 
their prosperity is proof even against vicious govern- 
ment. And so the two great parties, in playing the 
game of politics, sometimes vie with each other in 
pandering to the popular passion of the hour, and 
court the roar of the galleries rather than history's ap- 
proved voice. Undoubtedly the splendid strength and 
youth of the American people are well-nigh uncon- 
querable, but no state was ever yet so great that a per- 
sistence in evil courses could not lay it low. We may 
presume too far. If we are guilty of reckless and im- 
pulsive action here we may wreck the nation. If you 
will pardon an old fable : As the boy Phaeton, driving 
the horses of the sun, but lacking Apollo's darting 
glance and unerring touch of rein, did not follow the 
safe middle course, and thus wrought havoc to both 
the earth and sky ; so by impulse and unsteadiness in 
driviniT this Washington chariot of ours, now steering 
too high and now too low, we may put our American 
constellations to flight, dry up the courses of our iron 
rivers, and make of our fertile prairies the sands of 
another Libya. [Applause.] 

Mr. McCall was one of the seven members of 
the House who voted against the Hepburn Act. 
He prophesied that its enactment would have an 

75 



Samuel W. McCall 

unfavorable effect upon the business of the rail- 
ways and would lead to an increase in their rates. 
Within little more than a year of its passage, 
the country had one of the most acute financial 
panics that it has ever experienced. Railway rates 
have increased, while confidence in railway invest- 
ments has so diminished as to check very ma- 
terially the construction of new roads, and the 
necessary expansion of existing roads and their 
efficient operation in the public interest. The 
number of miles of railway which have gone 
into the hands of receivers since the enactment 
of the Hepburn Act is perhaps not altogether 
unconnected with the provisions of that law. 

While the debate on the Hepburn Act was 
still fresh in the public mind, Mr. McCall came 
up for reelection. The following letter from one 
of the most acute thinkers in the country is 
weighty evidence of the place then occupied by 
Mr. McCall in American public life: — 

Cambridge, Massachusetts, 
November i, 1906. 

Hon. David T. Dickinson, 

Cambridge^ Mass. 
Dear Mr. Dickinson: — In these days, when the 
Democratic Party has no firm hold on any stable politi- 
cal principles and tends in many parts of the country 
to nominate erratic demagogues as candidates for high 

76 



Twenty Years of Legislation 

positions, a courageous, independent, conservative, forci- 
ble thinker and speaker like Mr. McCall renders a great 
service to the dominant party and the country by sup- 
plying in some measure the empty place of a vigorous 
opposition. It has been a great satisfaction to me for 
some years past to help return Mr. McCall to Con- 
gress, and I hope to continue to enjoy that satisfaction 
so long as I live. 

Very truly yours, 

Charles W. Eliot. 



CHAPTER III 

CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS 

IT has sometimes been urged as a reproach 
upon American public life that all discussion 
of proposed legislation degenerates into a debate 
as to constitutional power. The merits of meas- 
ures, it is alleged, are quite obscured by arguments 
as to the authority of the legislature to enact them. 
There is undoubtedly considerable reason for 
this criticism. Seldom, indeed, is any contentious 
measure enacted by Congress or by any state 
legislature which is not at some stage denounced 
as unconstitutional. When the opposition finds 
itself bereft of all other arguments, it falls back 
upon the final plea that the proposed legislation 
is in violation of the fundamental law. How- 
ever objectionable such a practice may be, it 
has some undoubted compensations. This plea 
keeps constantly before the people the nature of 
theirsystemof government, and familiarizes them, 
to a greater degree than is true of the people of 
any other country, with the chief concepts of their 
system of public law. The value of such discus- 
sions in the political education ot the people is 

78 



Constitutional Qitestions 

enormous, and their influence in preserving the 
limitations of the Constitution is incalculable. 

Mr. McCall's speeches and writings show that 
he has been a thoughtful student of political phi- 
losophy, and that he is familiar, not only with 
the working, but with the underlying principles, 
ot the chief systems oi government of both ancient 
and modern times. He is impressed with the 
soundness of the principles upon which the Ameri- 
can Constitution is based and with the necessity 
of their taithful observance. This does not mean 
that he regards the framework of our Government 
as perfect and incapable of improvement. He has 
voted for such changes as the election of United 
States Senators by popular vote, and he intro- 
duced into the the House a bill for amending 
the Constitution by vesting Congress with the 
power to regulate hours of labor throughout the 
United States. Such changes as these arc, how- 
ever, mere details. They do not affect the fun- 
damentals of the constitutional system by which 
the American people are endeavoring to solve 
the problem of reconciling liberty and law, and 
of preserving unity without that uniformity which 
tends to aristocracy and tyranny. The instru- 
mentality bv which we are endeavoring to attain 
these results is a written constitution which sets 
bounds to the authority ot the governmental 

79 



Samuel W. McCall 

agents whom the people select. This can be effec- 
tive only in so far as its provisions are regarded. 
Mr. McCall might have taken as the basis of 
his constitutional discussions Chief Justice Mar- 
shall's query, " To what purpose are powers lim- 
ited and to what purpose is that limitation com- 
mitted to writing, if these limits may, at any time, 
be passed by those intended to be restrained ? " 

It was while Mr. McCall was in Congress that 
the strongest effort known in the history of the 
country was made to magnify the authority of 
the Federal Government at the expense of the 
States. Of^cials who were anxious to " do things " 
plainly showed their impatience under the re- 
straints imposed by the Constitution. Responsi- 
ble statesmen in public speech warned the States 
that if they failed in the performance of their duty, 
"constructions" of the Constitution would be 
"found " which would vest the necessary author- 
ity in the Federal Government. It was a danger- 
ous period in American history — all the more 
dangerous because the objects which those in 
authority sought to accomplish were in general 
so praiseworthy, and because the people were so 
impressed bv what they would gain as to be 
almost oblivious to what they would lose. It was 
a time for recourse to fundamental principles, and 
for a testing of the new statesmanship by an 
80 



Constitutional (^kstions 

application of the political philosophy upon which 
the American Government was founded. 

On Lincoln's birthday, 1907, Mr. McCall 
delivered an address before the Republican Club 
of New York City on " The Importance of pre- 
serving the Constitutional Balance between the 
Federal Government and the States." The ad- 
dress attracted wide attention and the House of 
Representatives ordered it printed in the " Con- 
gressional Record." It was one of Mr. McCall's 
most thoughtful speeches, and would rank high 
in comparison with any discussion of the funda- 
mental principles of the Constitution. The an- 
niversary upon which he was speaking naturally 
suggested Lincoln's attitude toward the States. 

Lincoln micht easily be pardoned if the consuming 
work to which he devoted his life had produced in his 
mind an undue regard for the National as against the 
State Governments and a willingness to see the balance 
established by the Constitution destroyed. But while 
he was compelled to employ every power in the great 
conflict of arms, in the presence of which the Consti- 
tution and all other laws were silent, he was in the 
highest degree conservative of the State Governments. 
His speeches before the war show his regard for the 
States, but it is more significantly proven by the policy 
he had determined upon near the end of his life, a 
policy which rejected the " conquered-province " theory 
of the status of the seceding States, and presented a 

81 



Samuel W. McCall 

plan so mild, so constitutional, and so opposed to the 
radicalism of the moment that his successor was over- 
thrown for attempting to put it in force. 

What, then, is the system of government that Lincoln 
stood for and that emerged victorious from the Civil 
War? It is a dual system, under a Constitution which 
as distinctly reserved powers to the States and the peo- 
ple as it granted others to the National Government. 
It was thus presented by the Supreme Court after the 
war, and in the light of the consequences of that 
struggle : " it may not be unreasonably said that the 
preservation of the States and the maintenance of their 
governments are as much within the design and care 
of the Constitution as the preservation of the Union 
and the maintenance of the National Government. The 
Constitution in all its provisions looks to an indestruct- 
ible union composed of indestructible States." Nulli- 
fication by States of the action of the National Gov- 
ernment would be entirely repugnant to this system, 
but no more repugnant than usurpation by the Na- 
tional Government of the powers reserved to the 
States. Either would be, in substance, precisely what 
South Carolina tried to do and would be destructive of 
our constitutional system. If the forces of disunion, 
the centrifugal forces, were permitted to have sway, 
the States would fly from their orbits and cease to re- 
volve about the Central Government. On the other 
hand, it the centripetal forces were given unchecked 
domination the powers of the States would be drawn 
by attraction of gravitation to the central authority, 
they would become the mere shadows of governments 

82 



CciNSTITUTIONAL Ql_JF.STlONS 

and a powerful central despotism would be the result. 
W^hcther you may favor the one system or the other 
it is enough to say that neither one is the balanced 
system established by the American Constitution. 

Advocates of the new nationalism, to be sure, 
proposed to limit the expansion of Federal au- 
thority to "fields of necessary control." 

But who is to decide, in the first instance, what arc 
"fields of necessary control"? Obviously the gentle- 
men who wish to exercise the control. . , . And a 
given field of " necessary control " having been taken 
possession of by the National Government, a construc- 
tion will be found to keep it under control. This 
theory, it is needless to say, would erect usurpation 
into a constitutional system. . . . 

Mr. McCall then attacked the fundamental 
assumption of the argument for the expansion 
of the Federal authority by construction by show- 
ing that the charge of inefficiency brought against 
the State Governments, as compared with the 
Federal Government, was not warranted by the 
facts. The Federal Government has been cred- 
ited with an "imagined perfection" which it 
does not possess. " The railroads," he said, 
" have been built almost entirely through state 
agencies. But one railroad, the Union Pacific, 
was constructed under national control, and the 
Credit Mobilier and other scandals associated 

83 



Samuel W. McCall 

with it almost shook the Government to its 
base." In the District of Columbia, where the 
national authority has full sway, the corporation 
laws "would make a New Jerseyman blush." 

In any consideration of the relation between 
the Federal Government and the States, the vast 
size of the country and the diversity of interests 
of its several sections must be remembered. 

It is a slow process to develop a homogeneous public 
opinion in so populous and scattered a people. Diversity 
of interests will develop diversity of opinions in differ- 
ent groups of States. These diverse and conflicting in- 
terests will often bring into play forces that neutralize 
each other and prevent all national action. Or in cases 
where a uniform sentiment is aroused the impetus of 
so great a body of opinion is overwhelming, reason 
loses its force, and the most extreme course is liable to 
be taken. The failure of the effort to retire in times of 
peace the forced loan of the Government put out in war 
and the many compromises regarding silver illustrate 
the balancing of forces, while Reconstruction, which 
resulted from an unmistakable, widespread, and uncon- 
trollable public opinion, illustrates unreasonable and 
extreme action. Reconstruction was pressed through 
by patriots and statesmen at Washington, acting in ig- 
norance of local conditions, and it produced a condi- 
tion of things which made it necessary for the people 
of the States affected to resort to violence and fraud in 
order to save civilization. Burke says repeal is more 
blessed than enactment ; but when a law once finds its 

84 



Constitutional Qi^testions 

way upon our national statute books, it requires almost 
a revolution to repeal it. Witness so necessary a meas- 
ure as the silver repeal, which Cleveland was able to 
secure onlv through the disruption of his party. 

The political philosophy underlying the Amer- 
ican constitutional system was thus expounded : — 

The founders of our Government were jealous of 
power. They aimed to secure liberty — first, by pro- 
tecting the individual against the encroachments of gov- 
ernment, and second, by retaining the maximum of 
governmental powers in those governmental organs near 
to the people. They knew that mankind had suffered 
quite as greatlv from too much as from too little gov- 
ernment and that uncounted millions of men had 
groaned under its persecutions and exactings; that gov- 
ernments were very apt to be conducted for the benefit 
of those, or of the favorites of those, who wielded them, 
and that the creation of an enormous central engine of 
authority would be subversive of individual freedom. 
They knew that bad men, honest and fanatical men, 
had often secured control of governments and had made 
of them scourges more deadly than the earthquake or 
the pestilence. And their jealousy of unrestrained power 
was as justifiable as it was profound. 

Francis Lieber has said that we do not enjov libertv 
by grace of government, but bv limitations upon its 
powers. This is precisely the theory upon which our 
Government was founded. Freedom inhered in the in- 
dividual, and powers not granted were expressly re- 
scr\cd. And the proposition to take them away by 

8S 



Samuel W. McCall 

"construction" in any supposed emergency is only a 
part of the unending conflict between autocracy and 
liberty. 

The cautious grant of powers to the Central Gov- 
ernment, the express limitations imposed upon them, 
the reservation of other important powers to the sub- 
ordinate governments with limitations again, made of 
our Constitution by far the most tolerant of liberty of 
any system ever established. The States are ideally 
constituted to deal with the great mass of questions 
relating to personal government. They do not possess 
the war power. They can have no foreign policies, and 
the most important cause of governmental infatuation 
and of dangerous ambition is thus taken away. They 
conduct their operations under the very eyes of the 
people, and there is far less temptation to theatric gov- 
ernment than where actors are performing to very large 
and very distant galleries and in order to thrill them 
are compelled to make up too heavily to Impose upon 
nearer spectators. They deal especially with the hum- 
drum but vital concerns of everyday life, and, by an 
apportionment of their powers among towns and coun- 
ties, the people not only have an opportunity of know- 
ing how government is conducted, but they have an 
opportunity to engage in it. They feel a practical re- 
sponsibility for it, see that its aftairs are really their 
own, and instead of being like the political upholsterer 
of Addison, who was taken up with the concerns of 
the King of Sweden or some other distant monarch 
while he neglected his own, they acquire a practical 
and vital interest in it and deal with it through their 

86 



Constitutional Questions 

senses and reason instead of their imagination. We thus 
see our system of government springing from a broad 
base and extending by a gradual and easy slope to the 
summit of power which rests as lightly as does the top- 
most point of a pyramid upon the mass beneath. How 
much better this than a jutting and overhanging mass 
of power at the very top, oppressing the people below 
with its intolerable weight until, in the providence ot 
God, it topples over. 

In the effort to enlarge the functions of the 
Federal Government, the achievements of the 
States and particularly the accomplishment of 
individuals were belittled and overlooked. In 
the struggle of mankind toward better things, it 
is the individual rather than government who 
has usuallv been responsible for the advance. 
The best service that government can render is 
that of protection to the individual while he 
works out the problems of the race. 

The individual citizen has not done badly. What 
reason is there for the deification of the Federal office- 
holder ? Our contributions to astronomy have been 
made, not by the magnificent Government instruments 
at Georgetown, but by the private and often humble 
institutions of the country. The effect of drugs upon 
the human system has been disclosed, not by the chief 
of the poison squad of the Department of Agriculture, 
ostentatiously trumpeting information already known 
to every sophomore in medicine, but by research carried 

87 



Samuel W, McCall 

on in a hundred schools. Our marvelous inventions 
and all our other gifts to civilization have come from the 
splendid body of our private citizenship, containing 
uncounted men fitted to honor our highest offices. And 
as our chief source of greatness in the past has been in 
the cherishing freedom which has stimulated that citi- 
zenship, so will our hope for the future be in the con- 
tinuance of that freedom. Our citizens may be trusted 
to learn how to spell and how to regulate their diets 
and their baths without too much governmental assist- 
ance from Washington. 

The time may come when the muckraker shall sit 
in the seat of the publicist and the sensational dema- 
gogue take the place of the statesman, and when we 
shall be given over to the heralds of a statutory millen- 
nium who would make everybody equal and perfect 
by penal enactment. But I trust the Republican Party 
will make it its first duty to resist the coming of that 
day, and while always ready to exercise when necessary 
any national power in its full vigor, that it will safe- 
guard the autonomy of the States, so that those who dwell 
in America hereafter may continue to enjoy that rounded 
and symmetrical system of free government preserved 
and handed down to us under that greatest of Repub- 
lican statesmen, whose career we to-day commemorate, 
and to the end, too, that in the words of the immortal 
message from Gettysburg, " government of the people, 
by the people, for the people shall not perish from the 
earth." 

Mr. McCall attached so much importance to 
the preservation of the balance between the 
88 



Constitutional Qi^tpstions 

Federal Government and the States as a means 
of guarding the liberty of the individual that 
later in the same year he returned to this theme, 
and at the Jamestown Exposition, on September 
17, 1907, — the anniversary of the signing of 
the Constitution and of Washington's Farewell 
Address, — he spoke eloquently of the attempt 
of the framers of the Constitution to reconcile 
order with libertv, and of the success which had 
followed their efforts. If the Constitution, he 
said, *' has thwarted some adventurous designs 
and set at naught the crude and callow projects 
of inexperience, that was one of the things it was 
supremelv designed to do." 

In eulogizing the Constitution, however, Mr. 
McCall had no intention of representing it as hav- 
ing reached such a stateof perfection as to be in no 
need of change. His contention simplv was thatif 
change was necessary it should be made in the pre- 
scribed way and not by so-called "construction." 

If amendments are desirable, there is a way provided 
for their adoption. And upon this day, which is the 
anniversary of the Farewell Address, as well as of the 
final action of the Convention, we may well ponder 
upon those weighty words spoken by that great soldier 
and statesman, to whom more than to anv other man 
we are indebted for our independence and our National 
Government. " If in the opinion of the people," said 

89 



* Samuel W. McCall 

George Washington one hundred and eleven years ago 
to-day, "the distribution or modification of the constitu- 
tional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be cor- 
rected by amendment in the way the Constitution des- 
ignates. But let there be no change by usurpation ; for, 
though this in one instance may be the instrument of 
good, it is the customary weapon by which free govern- 
ments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly 
overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient 
benefit which the use can at any time yield." 

But it is proposed to expand the Constitution by 
"construction." So far as the rules of interpretation 
are concerned, they should, of course, be applied, not 
with the technical narrowness employed in construing 
penal statutes, but with the liberality befitting the 
organic act of a government in which general terms 
must necessarily be used. But if under the pretense of 
exercising a granted power a power not granted is put 
in force, then we should have substantially that usurpa- 
tion which would fall under the denunciation of George 
Washington. 

After quoting Mr. Gladstone's rhetorical flour- 
ish, to the effect that our Constitution is "the 
most wonderful work struck off at a given time 
by the brain and purpose of man," Mr. McCall 
compares our form of government with that of 
some other countries for the purpose of noting 
its distinctive feature: — 

To my mind the distinctive thing about the Amer- 
ican Constitution, which indelibly stamps its character, 
90 



Constitutional Questions 

is that it embodied an experiment before that time un- 
known, and established a government upon the corner- 
stone of the individual, making him for certain essential 
purposes of freedom superior even to the Government 
itself. In other nations, whatever liberty there was had 
commonly appeared in the form of concessions and 
grants from sovereigns to the people. The kings ruled 
by a claim of divine right. Whatever of liberty the 
people enjoyed came by gift from the king, and what- 
ever authority was not granted by the king remained 
vested in him. But the American Constitution reversed 
all that. It proceeded from the people. The Government 
which it established was one of limited powers. Every 
power that it possessed was delegated by the people, 
and every power not granted was expressly reserved to 
the people or to some of the governmental organs which 
they had previously established. The original Constitu- 
tion was framed upon this theory, but that there might 
be no doubt about it, at least six of the States, and 
amoncT them V^iririnia and Massachusetts and New 
York, accompanied their ratification by resolutions 
making an express construction that all powers not 
granted were reserved ; and the first Congress submitted 
among the amendments embodving the Bill of Rights, 
the Tenth Amendment, declaring that " the powers 
not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, 
nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the 
States respectively or to the people." This amendment 
was immediately ratified and placed in the Constitu- 
tion. It is there even more impressively than if it had 
been made a part of the original instrument, and it 

9« 



Samuel W. McCall 

deals a death-blow to the theory that our Government 
has about it any " divine right " or any " inherent 
power," or any power that is not contained in the ex- 
press grant. To my mind, therefore, the striking thing 
in the American Constitution, which differentiates it 
from the previously formed constitutions of all other 
nations, is the manner in which it imposed limitations 
upon government, recognizing that all power originally 
resided in the people, and that no government had any 
species of authority over them which they did not ex- 
pressly grant. 

We Americans as a people are easily impressed 
by mere bulk. It pleases us to think that in terri- 
torial extent we are the largest of the great powers ; 
that the population of the United States exceeds 
that of any other one country, exclusive of its de- 
pendencies, except only China and Russia; that 
more than half the total railway mileage of the 
world lies in the United States; that no other 
country has so many cities with more than a mil- 
lion inhabitants as has this country, — and other 
facts of a similar degree of importance or unim- 
portance. But we do not so easily perceive that 
the larger the country and the more numerous its 
population, the less important is each individual 
and the more he is obscured by the size of the 
communitv to which he belongs. 

Herein lies another reason for maintaining the 
autonomy of the States. 
92 



Constitutional Qi^kstions 

A great central government exerting its authority in 
all governmental matters over a vast and scattered popu- 
lation necessarily takes on an autocratic character. The 
part of each individual in such a government becomes 
so infinitesimal and diluted that it vanishes almost en- 
tirely as an appreciable force. The wide range of powers 
heretofore exercised under the Constitution by the States 
gives an opportunitv to the individual citizen to bear an 
appreciable part in actual government. The historian 
Freeman, in comparing small states with great ones, said 
that a ''small republic develops all the faculties of indi- 
vidual citizens to the highest pitch. The average citizen 
of such a state is a superior being to the average citizen 
of a large kingdom. He ranks, not with its average sub- 
jects, but at the very least with its average legislators." 
I have given the obvious reason. In a small community 
resting upon suffrage, which is practically universal, the 
average citizen takes part in the actual work of govern- 
ment, and is disciplined by it, while in a very large nation 
he is practicallv a spectator. In the one case participa- 
tion in government will beget a facility for it, and, dealing 
with subjects at close range, his practical sense instead 
of his imagination will be brought into play. But where 
he is a spectator looking at transactions taking place 
upon a distant stage, the thing that stages well is the thing 
that will command his attention. The rotund chest and 
swelling shoulders of the hero may be only sawdust, but 
the effect upon the distant onlooker will be the same. He 
is dealing with things which may or may not be real. The 
opportunity for deception is great, the chance of detection 
small. The ideal condition is that provided by our sys- 

93 



Samuel W. McCall ' 

tern. We can have the protection, the security, and the 
sense of national pride attending a great nation, and 
we can at the same time be free, in conjunction with 
those in our immediate neighborhoods, to manage our 
local affairs in our own way, without the intermeddling 
of an autocrat. 

Whatever faults the people of the United States 
may have developed, their most stringent critics 
will admit that in most situations they have dis- 
played a robust common sense, which, when they 
have taken time for reflection, has saved them 
from serious blunders. But there is always the 
danger that in some critical situation we may yield 
to the blandishments of an impatient statesman 
who wishes to "do things." It is then that the 
restraints of the Constitution are most valuable. 

The mortal disease of democracies is the dema- 
gogue. It is so easy to make the most prosperous peo- 
ple think they are ill-treated and badly off; it is so 
easy to use the property of a small class to bribe the 
members of a large class, that unscrupulous politicians 
in all ages have found a ready means to advance their 
fortunes under democratic goverments. The makers of 
our Constitution were well aware of this danger, and 
they made careful provision against the demagogue. 
They knew that often history condemned what the 
crowd at the moment applauded. They safeguarded 
liberty and property, imposed checks against hasty ac- 
tion, so that the people might have time to think and 

94 



Constitutional Qi^'estions 

form an opinion worthy of the name, and they carefully 
distributed power among the three great departments of 
government. The system has worked admirably. 

That was an impressive dictum of Montesquieu, that 
" there is no liberty if the judiciary be not separated from 
the legislative and executive powers." The independent 
judiciary of the United States, standing apart and coldly 
scrutinizing in the light of the Constitution the action of 
the other departments, has proven a most effective guar- 
dian of liberty. 

1 he House of Representatives, fresh from the people, 
is sure to voice the immediate popular demand. The 
Senate, differently constituted, acts with more deliberate 
reserve, although its efficiency would be increased and 
its conservatism in no degree lessened if the democratic 
principle were not so grossly violated in its composition. 
The Constitution so invested the President with power 
at the same time that it decorated him with honor that it 
satisfied his ambition and sobered him with the weight of 
great responsibilities. And our Presidents have usually 
been a great conservative force, and more than once 
they have not hesitated to step into the cold light of 
unpopularity if they might thereby advance their coun- 
try's honor. Sailing before the wind has not been a 
favorite pastime with American Presidents ; their great 
deeds often have been at the time unpopular. Washing- 
ton breathed the popular fury when he issued his procla- 
mation of neutrality, but he struck a mighty blow for 
the independence of our foreign relations. Cleveland 
heroically braved a widespread sentiment and sacrificed 
his popularity in order to preserve the standard of value 

95 



Samuel \V. McCall 

of our money. And when the printing-presses were to 
be set in motion and the national bondholders were to 
be paid in paper, Grant, the silent, inflexible soldier, who 
was always a hero unless upon dress parade, interposed 
his veto against inflation. The result of the workings 
of our institutions has been seen in a progress which 
has conserved, and while we have made haste slowly we 
have outstripped all other nations. 

Thus the Constitution has safely carried us through 
the most rapidly moving century the world has ever 
seen. It has shown itself equal to this great era. How 
will it ride the tumbling waters of the century that has 
just dawned ? How will it be in the far future when 
mayhap the Gaul shall insultingly leap upon the ruins 
of the Capitol and " wasteful wars shall statues over- 
turn" ? Whether it shall then endure or be derided and 
trampled under foot will depend not so much upon the 
virility of its powers, as upon the integrity and sense of 
justice of the American people. No constitution can 
save a nation from itself. To that riddle of the future 
the wise and venerable Franklin in almost the last 
words spoken to the convention, after the engrossed 
copy had been read, gave perhaps the most illuminating 
answer that can be made. It can, he said, speaking of 
the Constitution, " only end in despotism, as other forms 
have done before it, when the people shall become so 
corrupted as to need despotic government — being in- 
capable of any other." 

The relation between the Federal Govern- 
ment and the States was involved in the proposal 
96 



Constitutional Q['f.stions 

to amend the Constitution by giving to Congress 
the power to levy an income tax. The amend- 
ment, which was proposed to the States by Con- 
gress on July 12, 1 909, was passed by that body 
in great haste and with slight consideration of 
its form. Mr. McCall approved of the income 
tax as a means of raising revenue but thought 
that the power to levy it, except in great national 
emergencies, should be reserved to the States. 
He also advocated that the proposed amendment 
be so changed as to give to the House of Repre- 
sentatives the sole right to originate a bill levy- 
ing an income tax and as to require the Senate 
to accept or reject the bill in the exact form in 
which it came from the House. He added: — 

It is said that this tax is for use in time of war. . . . 
Whv not, then, limit it expressly to time of war? Why 
not, for the just protection and the equal rights of the 
people of New York and of the other great States of 
this Union, five of which probably will pay nine tenths 
of an income tax, although they will have only one 
ninth of the representation in the Senate — why not 
preserve the limitation upon the power of the Central 
Government ? Whv drag every governmental power to 
Washington so that a vast centralized government may 
devour the States and the libertv of the individual as 
well ? I sav this amendment should be more carefully 
considered than it has vet been considered. 

It is liable to go into the Constitution of the United 

97 



Samuel W. McCall 

States and be forever a part of the organic law in the 
form in which it has been, I may almost say, extem- 
porized or improvised. The character of the argument 
which has been made, that this tax is for use in time of 
war, leads me to observe that the chief purpose of the 
tax is not financial, but social. It is not primarily to 
raise money for the State, but to regulate the citizen 
and to regenerate the moral nature of man. The indi- 
vidual citizen will be called on to lay bare the inner- 
most recesses of his soul in affidavits, and with the aid 
of the Federal inspector, who will supervise his books 
and papers and business secrets, he may be made to be 
good, according to the notions of virtue at the moment 
prevailing in Washington. And, incidentally, and since 
access to every business secret in the country can be had 
by the authorities at Washington, the citizen may be 
made to see his political duty if you happened to have 
a President who confused the attainment of his ambition 
with the highest good of the universe and was willing 
to abuse his power in order to coerce the citizen. You 
are creating here an ideal condition for corruption and for 
the political Jack Cade of the future to levy blackmail. 
And so, Mr. Speaker, believing that this amendment, 
with no compensation whatever, does away with an 
important part of the great compromise of the Consti- 
tution, and that it is not limited to the emergency for 
which it is said to be intended, I shall vote against it. 
The amendment has not carefully been considered bv 
a committee of this House or by anybody else in the 
United States that I know of, unless possibly by Mr. 
William J. Bryan. [Applause.] 

98 



Constitutional Qi^estions 

The income tax amendment became part of 
the Constitution on February 25, 1913. How 
little reference it had to the war necessities of the 
Government may be seen from the fact that a bill 
levying an income tax was introduced into the 
House six weeks later, and became a law Octo- 
ber 3, 1913. 

While thus maintaining the rights of the States 
against encroachment, Mr. McCall was equally- 
strenuous in asserting the supremacy of the Fed- 
eral Government within the sphere allotted to it. 
When the amendment providing for the popular 
election of United States Senators was before 
Congress, strong efforts were made to deprive the 
Senate of all authority over the election of its 
members. Had this movement succeeded, we 
should have had the strange situation that if a 
State sent to the Senate a man who had been 
chosen by the most corrupt methods, or even one 
who did not possess the constitutional qualifica- 
tions for membership in the Senate, there would 
have been no instrumentality of the Federal 
Government to exclude him. There would have 
been the further anomaly that while the House 
of Representatives would still have been the sole 
judge of the election and qualifications of its mem- 
bers, the election of Senators would have been 
entirely under the control of the States. Mr. 

99 



Samuel W. McCall 

McCall was in favor of the popular election of 
Senators. The state legislatures were not chosen 
primarily for the purpose of electing Senators, 
and the influences to which they were often 
subjected did not conduce to good government. 
But, on the other hand, Mr. McCall was so 
much opposed to the proposition that the Fed- 
eral Government should have no control over the 
choice of this important class of Federal officers 
that he declared that he would vote against the en- 
tire amendment unless that feature was removed. 
Ultimately this strange attempt to cripple the 
Federal Government was defeated. 

Another constitutional controversy, on which 
Mr. McCall has spoken and written much, con- 
cerns the relations between the House and the 
Senate. The latter, as the smaller and more per- 
manent body of the two, and endowed also with 
extensive executive powers, has tended for many 
years to magnify its place in the Government, and 
in so doing has encroached upon the constitutional 
prerogative of the House to originate revenue 
bills. The power of the purse, which in England 
is vested in the House of Commons, was in- 
tended by the framers of the Constitution to be 
vested in the House of Representatives. At first 
the House took the position that the power of 
the Senate over money bills was confined to sim- 

100 



Constitutional Qi_:rsTioNS 

pie acceptance or rejection. But the Senate argued 
that the exclusive power of the House was con- 
fined to bills for raising revenue, and that the 
Senate not onlv could amend such bills to any 
extent, but could even originate bills for the re- 
peal of taxes or reduction of revenue. The con- 
troversv has never been settled. The House 
has alwavs refused to pass bills for the reduction 
of revenue which originated in the Senate, but it 
has not been consistent in its attitude toward its 
revenue measures, some of which have been radi- 
cally amended in the Senate. In 1872 the House 
sent to the Senate a bill relating to a tax on coffee 
and the Senate amended it by substituting a com- 
plete revision of the tariff. This called forth a pro- 
test from the House, and in the course of the de- 
bate in that bodv Garfield said that the action of 
the Senate violated " a right which cannot be sur- 
rendered without inflicting a fatal wound upon the 
integritv of our whole system of government." 
Nevertheless, the Senate persisted in its practice. 
The Mills Bill, framed by the House on free- 
trade lines, was converted by a Republican Sen- 
ate into a high protective tariff. The Wilson Bill 
was so radicallv changed by the Senate that Presi- 
dent Cleveland refused to sign it. The Payne 
Bill was returned to the House with more than 
six hundred amendments. This long-continued 

lOI 



Samuel W. McCall 

practice has made the prerogative of the House 
little more than a shadow. Both on the floor of 
the House and in print Mr. McCall has urged 
the necessity of observing the spirit of the Con- 
stitution. On February ii, 1901, he said in the 
House in reference to a revenue bill: — 

I believe that the Senate's action is contrary to the 
spirit of the Constitution. A reading of the debates at 
the time of the adoption of the Constitution, a reading 
of the contemporaneous construction of that instrument 
in the " Federalist," the whole history of the struggle 
in Great Britain over the exercise of the power of 
taxation, it seems to me, can leave no doubt that the 
Senate, in the case of the bill it has returned here, is 
practically usurping power. It is not a mere technical 
question, as put by the gentleman from Texas. It is a 
question of political power, the distribution of political 
power between the two Houses of Congress. It is a 
question on which it is the duty of the House to assert 
its prerogative and to contend for a fair and broad con- 
struction, rather than a technical construction which 
will leave it with the mere shadow of power. . . . The 
framers of the Constitution vested a great power in the 
smaller States in the Senate, and to offset that power a 
compensation was provided by conferring a special power 
over taxation upon the House. . . . The framers of 
the Constitution, as shown by the debates on the Con- 
stitution, intended to leave the House in substantiallv 
the same position as the House of Commons. Taxes 
were declared to be the voluntary grant of the House 
102 



Constitutional Qitestions 

of Commons which represented the people of England. 
The States do not pay the national taxes ; the taxes are 
paid by the people. One sixth of the people of this 
country elect a majority of the whole Senate. The State 
of New York has as many people as the combined pop- 
ulation of States electing thirty-six Senators. The fram- 
ers of the Constitution provided that while certain powers 
of government, such as might be exercised by a council 
of a State, should be transacted by the Senate, the power 
over the purse should be held by the House, which 
represented the people. On the theory of the Senate's 
action the great power of the House to originate reve- 
nue bills dwindles to the power only of originating an 
enacting clause. The House cannot with any dignity 
and with a due regard to its own prerogative ask the 
Senate for a committee of conference. [Applause.] 

■Mr. McCall has also protested against the 
Senate's use of the treaty-making power to usurp 
the prerogative of the House to originate revenue 
bills. In an article in the "Atlantic Monthly" 
for October, 1903, he said: — 

The expansion of the power of the Senate in an un- 
democratic as well as in an unconstitutional direction 
is also seen in the growing tendency to pass laws, and 
especially taxation laws, by treaty. Treaties are high 
contracts between nations, and it can hardly be belie\ ed 
that it was within the contemplation of the framers of 
the Constitution so elaborately to construct a legislative 
machine and at the same time to throw the whole mech- 
anism out of gear by a single clause regarding treaties, 

103 



Samuel W. McCall 

providing that the President and Senate might call in a 
foreign potentate and make laws for the National Gov- 
ernment of the United States. Treaties have the force 
of law, but they should obviously be within the fair 
scope of the treaty-making power. At any rate, it would 
scarcely be reasonable to claim that they set aside the 
Constitution, and if we are to regard the Senate as a 
part of two legislative machines, it cannot, as a part of 
either, do the things prohibited by the Constitution. 
Under that instrument revenue bills must originate in 
the House. How, then, can they originate by treatv ? 
It would, indeed, be a curious spectacle, that of the 
Senate, composed in the way it is, sitting behind closed 
doors, and deciding in secret what taxes the American 
people are to pay. 

Another phase of the relations between the Sen- 
ate and the House of Representatives is involved 
in the respective authority of the two bodies in 
the making and abrogation of treaties. The Con- 
stitution declares that a treaty which has received 
the sanction of the President and two thirds of 
the Senate is a part of the supreme law of the 
land and all persons are bound thereby. This is 
clear and explicit, but if the United States desires 
to rid itself of a treaty into which it has entered, 
some difficult questions arise. Mav the assents 
of the United States who made the treaty — that 
is, the President and the Senate — also abrogate 
it, or must both branches of the legislature join 
104 



Constitutional Q^tfstions 

in altering the supreme law of the land? This 
matter was fully discussed in Congress in 191 i 
in connection with the abrogation of the treaty 
with Russia. Mr. McCall, in a speech on De- 
cember 20, 191 1, argued that treaties should 
only be abrogated by a joint resolution of the 
two Houses of Congress. In support of this 
view he said : — 

I do not concur at all in the view that has been ad- 
vanced in another body, that the power to break trea- 
ties resides in the Executive, by and with the advice 
and consent of the Senate. The Constitution expressly 
confers upon the President the power to make treaties, 
with the concurrence of two thirds of the Senators pres- 
ent. Now, we all know what the making of a treaty is. 
Jav has said that a treaty is a trade between two na- 
tions. It requires two or more parties to make a trade ; 
but treaty-breaking is a radically different thing. That 
can be done by one party. It is sometimes a perilous 
thing to do. It mav sometimes lead to war. It may lead 
to the destruction of the vested rights of millions of 
people, and it seems to me that it is a very extraordi- 
nary construction to put upon the Constitution to hold 
that the term " making treaties" is so pregnant as to 
include its opposite. 

I have no doubt that the Senate can very wisely ex- 
ercise this power. It is a great thing for the country to 
have a body of wise and virtuous men who are con- 
scious of their qualities and are willing in a patriotic way 
to exercise not merely their own constitutional powers, 

105 



Samuel W. McCall 

but whatever other powers may be scattered about 
under our system of government and which, not being 
nailed down, can be made to move in their direction. 
[Applause.] 

Treaties have usually been abrogated by both Houses 
of Congress. There are a very few exceptions. There 
is the exception of the action of Air. Lincoln, taken 
during war-time, and yet it was thought best in that 
case to have his action subsequently affirmed by a vote 
of the two Houses of Congress. [Applause.] 

When the Fifty-sixth Congress assembled in 
December, 1899, it was found that on the face 
of the returns Brigham H. Roberts had been 
elected to the House of Representatives from the 
State of Utah. It was not questioned that he 
possessed the requisite constitutional qualifica- 
tions and that he had received a majority of the 
votes cast. But it was alleged that he was a po- 
lygamist, and in consequence of a fit of moral 
hysteria, such as sometimes seizes Congress, 
a resolution was introduced declarinor that he 
"ought not to have or hold a seat in the House 
of Representatives and that the seat to which he 
was elected is hereby declared vacant." This res- 
olution presented an important question of con- 
stitutional right and power. The Constitution 
provides that either branch of Congress mav, bv 
a two-thirds vote, expel one of its members. It 
also provides that each House shall be the judge 
106 



Constitutional Q]^' est ions 

of the election, return, and qualifications of its 
own members. By virtue of this clause, the spon- 
sors of the resolution for the exclusion of Rob- 
erts claimed the right to declare his seat vacant. 
Mr. McCall took the opposite view. He argued 
that if the House assumed the right to exclude 
a legally-elected member for any reason not spec- 
ified in the Constitution, it thereby to that extent 
added to the constitutional qualifications for elec- 
tion to the House. Furthermore, if the House 
could exclude any man because it did not ap- 
prove of his personal habits, it could exclude 
him for any other reason that might seem good 
to it. The Constitution itself clearly distinguished 
between the power to exclude and the power to 
expel. The former requires only a majority vote, 
while the latter, which is evidently regarded as a 
more serious matter, requires a two-thirds vote. 
Since the committee appointed to investigate the 
Roberts case had found that he possessed the con- 
stitutional qualifications for membership in the 
House and that he had been duly elected, Mr. 
McCall argued that he was entitled to take his 
seat. Having been admitted to the House, that 
body could then, if it saw fit, expel him. And 
Mr. McCall added that in his judgment the prac- 
tice of polvgamy was sufficient cause for expul- 
sion. Mr. McCalTs argument is undoubtedly a 

107 



Samuel W. McCall 

sound exposition of the clauses of the Constitu- 
tion to which it relates, but the House, in acting 
upon the resolution, furnished another illustra- 
tion of the fact that in disposing of election cases 
it pays little heed to either law or evidence. The 
resolution was adopted by a vote of 268 to 50. 
When a similar case arose shortly afterward in 
the Senate, that body by a decisive vote adopted 
the course advocated by Mr. McCall. 

In recent years considerable dissatisfaction has 
been manifested with reference to the working 
of our political institutions. It has been felt that 
representatives did not reflect the sentiments of 
their constituents, and that partisan machinery 
was used to defeat the popular will. Senator 
Root's statement that the government of New 
York had been no more responsive to public 
sentiment during the past forty years than had 
the government of Venezuela was expert testi- 
mony in support of a widespread conviction. 
While there was little question as to the exist- 
ence of the condition, there was difference of 
opinion as to the cause and the remedv. There 
can be no doubt that one of the most potent rea- 
sons for the failure of our institutions to achieve 
the results desired is the excessive burden which 
their operation imposes upon the voter. No 
other electorate In the world is called upon to 
108 



Constitutional Qi^- est ions 

take so large a share in government as Is that 
of the United States. Our elections are so fre- 
quent, the number of officers to be chosen is so 
large, and the questions of policy to be consid- 
ered are so numerous, that the voter cannot 
properly discharge the task which is imposed 
upon him. Most members of the electorate are 
obliged to earn their living. Their time and at- 
tention must be given to their private affairs. It 
in addition they are obliged to pass upon numer- 
ous and complicated questions of public policy, 
the latter are certain to suffer. It is absurd to 
submit measures to the decision of electors who 
have neither time nor opportunity to inform 
themselves concerning them, and it is obvious 
that comparative! V few legislative questions arouse 
any general public interest or can be sufficiently 
freed from details to make them suitable for sub- 
mission to a popular vote. 

l^he remedies for admitted evils which have 
been most ardently advocated have been the in- 
itiative, the referendum, and the recall. These 
have been heralded by their sponsors as though 
they were the latest discoveries in the art of gov- 
ernment, whereas they are as old as organized 
society and are the devices under which the highly 
cultivated democracies of the ancient world went 
to ruin. It is somewhat strange that so practical 

109 



Samuel W. McCall 

a people as the Americans give so little heed to 
the experience of other countries in matters gov- 
ernmental, and so often assume that the laws of 
economics and of politics which operate in the 
rest of the world are suspended within our bor- 
ders. It is well, therefore, that some of our States 
have adopted the machinery of direct govern- 
ment which has proved so unsuccessful else- 
where, in order that we may have an ocular dem- 
onstration of its working. The State of Oregon, 
which has gone further in this direction than any 
other State in the Union, is rendering an impor- 
tant service in acting as a sort of political testing 
laboratory for the whole country. It mav not be 
out of place to refer here to an instructive illus- 
tration of the working of the referendum in a 
town in that State which desired to issue bonds 
under conditions which necessitated a popular 
vote on the question. In accordance with the 
provisions of the law of Oregon, a pamphlet set- 
ting forth the reasons for the issue was printed 
and a copy sent to each voter. In the pamphlet 
a mistake was made as to the date of maturitv 
of one series of the bonds, and the attorney for 
a prospective purchaser raised the question as 
to whether this mistake might not affect their 
validity. Whereupon the officers of the town 
offered to prove that only one voter had read 

I 10 



Constitutional Questions 

the pamphlet and that he had not noticed the 
error. 

On several occasions, but especially in an ad- 
dress before the Ohio State Bar Association in 
19 1 1, Mr. McCali has indicated the objections to 
the initiative, referendum, and recall as methods 
of government in the United States. Such suc- 
cess as these methods have ever had has been in 
small, homogeneous communities. He has many 
times protested against our tendency to multiply 
laws — a tendency which the initiative would only 
confirm. The facility with which signatures for 
the submission of a new law could be obtained 
was well illustrated by Mr. Roosevelt, who re- 
plied to an applicant for appointment as post- 
master who said that his application was sup- 
ported by a petition from his fellow townsmen, 
"I could get a petition to have you hanged." 

The referendum is less objectionable than the 
initiative, but in addition to the fact that the elec- 
torate is seldom sufficiently informed as to the 
details of legislative projects to make an intel- 
ligent decision on them, this method of procedure 
has an unfavorable effect on legislative bodies. 
As to this Mr. McCall said : — 

The referendum takes away from the legislature the 
responsibility for the final passage of the laws, and per- 
mits it to shift the burden upon the people. Legislators 

1 I I 



Samuel W. McCall 

will be asked : " Arc you not willing to trust the people 
to say in their wisdom whether a given bill should he 
enacted ? " The prevailing vice of members of lawmak- 
ing bodies in our countrv is not venality, it is political 
cowardice ; and they will be ready to take refuge in that 
invitation to trust the people. A witty member of Con- 
gress from Mississippi once said that he usually found 
it easier to do wrong than to explain why he did right. 
There will be no such difficulty under the referendum. 
The legislator may dodge the responsibility of voting 
upon some bad but specious law where his political in- 
terest would lead him to vote one way and his sense of 
duty another way. He would only need to say that he 
believed in the people, and would vote to refer it to 
that supreme court of appeal. 

One of the most pernicious measures ever rec- 
ommended as a method of popular government 
is the recall of judicial decisions. If the liberty of 
the individual is to be preserved, the judiciary 
must be independent. If the courts are deprived 
of their freedom, whether by the decree of a 
monarch after the manner of James II or by the 
vote of the people, men's rights are without any 
sure guaranty. Judges, to be sure, are fallible, but 
experience has shown that of all the means of 
protecting human freedom, an independent judi- 
ciary is the best. If a judicial decision were 
submitted to a popular vote, the result would 
inevitably be determined in large measure by the 

1 12 



Constitution a l (^' i-: st i o n s 

popularity or unpopularity of the litigants, and 
yet the most unpopular man or corporation is 
entitled to the equal protection of the laws. 
Those who have advocated that a judicial decision 
should be subject to being set aside by a popular 
vote have usually based their argument upon cases 
in which an attempted exercise of the police 
power has been held invalid on the ground that it 
was not due process of law. Justice Holmes once 
said of the police power, " It may be put forth in 
aid of what is sanctioned by usage, or held by the 
prevailing morality or strong and preponderating 
opinion to be greatly and immediately necessary 
to the public welfare." There could be no safer 
rule for the guidance of the courts than this, and 
the history of the American judiciary shows that 
in general it has been faithfully followed. But the 
fact that a particular piece of legislation has been 
enacted does not in itself prove that it represents 
the " prevailing morality or strong and prepon- 
derating opinion." The courts may judge of that 
with as much hope of reaching a correct result 
as may the legislature, and if they make a mistake 
experience has shown that they will correct it 
without a resort to a popular vote. In 1907, for 
instance, the Court of Appeals of New York held, 
in People v. Williams (189 N.Y. 131), that a 
statute regulating women's hours of work violated 

"'3 



Samuel W. McCall 

their freedom of contract. Only eight years later, 
in People v. Schweinler Press (214 N.Y. 395), 
the court reversed this decision in accordance 
with the " prevailing morality " and " strong and 
preponderating opinion." 



CHAPTER IV 

THE POLICY OK PROTECTION 

THK electoral contest of i 892, which was the 
first campaign in which Mr. McCall was a 
candidate for Congress, turned chiefly upon the 
tariff. From the beginning of its history the Re- 
publican Party had been committed to the policy 
of so shaping the tariff upon imports as to en- 
courage the establishment of new industries for 
which the country was adapted and to protect 
existing industries against foreign competition 
which could be met only by reducing wages be- 
low what was regarded as the proper American 
standard. The financial needs of the Government 
during the Civil War and the years immediately 
following were so great that there was little dis- 
cussion as to the rate of duties which should be 
imposed, but the Democratic platform of 1868 
declared for "a tariff for revenue upon foreign 
imports," and the two parties have continued to 
divide upon that issue, although in one or two 
campaigns, particularly those of 1896 and 191 2, 
the tariff has been overshadowed by other ques- 
tions. The Democratic platform has often been 

U5 



Samuel W. McCall 

so cryptic In its utterances upon the tariff that 
both a high protectionist like Samuel J. Randall 
and a free-trader like John G. Carlisle could sup- 
port it. In 1892, however, it was faultlessly clear. 
It denounced Republican protection as a fraud by 
which a great majority of the people were robbed 
for the benefit of a few, and declared it to be " a 
fundamental principle of the Democratic Party 
that the Federal Government has no constitu- 
tional power to impose and collect tariff duties, 
except for the purposes of revenue only." A 
President and a Congress elected on such a plat- 
form could have no choice but to undertake a 
revision of the tariff in accordance with the prin- 
ciple of a tariff for revenue only. 

The campaign of 1892 was one of the most 
listless that this country has ever known. Neither 
party displayed much enthusiasm either for its 
nominee or its platform. The situation was well 
expressed by Colonel Ingersoll when he said, 
" Each party would like to find some wav to beat 
the candidate of the other without electing its 
own." The Democrats had for a third time 
nominated Grover Cleveland, who promptly re- 
pudiated one of the most important planks in the 
party platform. The Republicans, in a perfunc- 
tory spirit, had renominated President Harrison. 
He was a man of unblemished character and high 
116 



The Policy of Protection 

ability, but he rivaled Whistler in his mastery of 
the art of making enemies, while his coldness of 
manner and lack of tact alienated even his friends, 
l^he most marked feature of the election was the 
sudden rise of the People's Party, which advo- 
cated many of the economic doctrines adopted 
by the Democrats four years later, and which 
polled over a million votes. The Democrats won 
an overwhelming victory, and for the first time 
since 1861 found themselves in control not only 
of the Presidency but of both branches of Con- 
gress. 

The clear-cut pronouncement in the Demo- 
cratic platform in favor of a tariff for revenue, as 
well as President Cleveland's well-known views 
on the subject, made it inevitable that the new 
Congress, in which Mr. McCall took his seat for 
the first time, should undertake a revision of the 
existing duties. Accordingly, when Congress met 
in regular session in December, 1893, ^^^ Com- 
mittee on Ways and Means, under the lead- 
ership of William L. W^ilson, of West Virginia, 
brought in a tariff bill. The proposed law lowered 
the duties on a comparatively small number of 
articles, and was in general a very moderate meas- 
ure of tariff reform. Moderate, however, as it 
was, the Democrats in the Senate refused to 
accept it, and returned it to the House with 

117 



Samuel W. McCall 

amendments so numerous and so radical as to 
make it a materially different measure. In its 
amended form it was so far from fulfilling the 
pledges of the Democratic platform that Presi- 
dent Cleveland wrote an indignant letter in which 
he characterized the action of the Democratic 
Senators as "party perfidy and party dishonor," 
and when the bill was accepted by the House and 
submitted to him for his approval, he held it for 
ten days and allowed it to become a law without 
his signature. 

While the Wilson bill was pending in the 
House, Mr. McCall delivered an important 
speech in which he urged that the tariff policy of 
the country should be determined by experience 
rather than by abstract theory. As his first utter- 
ance in Congress on a subject with which he was 
closely identified for twenty years, as well as 
for the reasoning involved, it possesses peculiar 
interest. 

I have been somewhat struck by the significant trib- 
ute that has been paid by the leading advocates of this 
bill to the strength of the practical evidence in favor 
of protection. They evidently prefer to soar among the 
clouds in the realm of pure abstraction and to commune 
with the kindred spirits of departed free-traders, rather 
than to cast even an occasional glance at the essential 
history of their country. I do not mean to assert, be- 
ii8 



The Policy of Protection 

cause it would not be true, that the supporters of this 
bill have not alluded to American atiairs. They tell 
us that employers are selfish. That, unfortunately, is a 
charge that can be truthfully made against any portion 
of mankind. They tell us that we have labor troubles 
and strikes in America, but they fail to tell us also that 
nowhere in the world are strikes more prevalent than in 
free-trade England. But the great central fact of our 
national prosperity they discreetly ignore, and I submit 
that that fact is not to be obscured or answered by mere 
noise or by theory, or by bellowing about Carnegie. 
Adam Smith's theories have been tested in this country 
on a gis^antic scale. Why not look at the result of the 
experiment ? 

One hundred years ago this was essentially an agri- 
cultural nation, and there has been no day from that 
time to this when the application of your theory, that 
we should consult the immediate needs of the consumer, 
that we should give our attention to those things that 
would at once and most easily turn a penny, would not 
have directed our growth in the direction of a purely 
agricultural development. 

As England and other countries supplying us with 
manufactured goods might have needed more bread, we 
should have reclaimed more land, until to-day we should 
be mere producers of raw materials in competition with 
Australia and the South American Republics. With 
land so plenty that each man could have his own farm, 
at any given time the laborer would earn more in tilling 
his own soil than in working in a factory in competition 
with similar labor abroad. With us, land was plenty 

119 



Samuel W. McCall 

and cheap ; abroad, it was comparativelv scarce and 
dear. The free play of the theories of Adam Smith, 
whose laws have so often in this debate been confused 
with the ordinances of the Almighty, would have made 
us essentially an agricultural nation. 

It was the happy fortune of this country that it was 
guided in its early days by men who took a broader view 
than that the immediate interest of consumption was the 
general interest. The good sense of Washington and 
those who aided him in laying the foundations of the 
Republic shaped for the young nation a far better des- 
tiny and started it under brighter auspices on the high- 
way of nations. 

Built to work out the sound aspirations of those 
immortal statesmen, and not an impracticable pedant's 
dream, the Republic has gone on to conquer and civil- 
ize the vast areas of her territory and to become great 
in every essential that goes to the making of a state. 
And she has conquered more. Mighty in her own 
growth, her achievements in invention and in every 
liberal pursuit have been of incalculable benefit to the 
world at large, and she has developed into a splendid 
agency for the uplifting of mankind. She is the practical 
answer to your theories, and also to your miserable as- 
sumption, made to masquerade in this debate as broad 
philanthropy, that the children of Adam the world over 
are poorer because of her prosperity. . . . 

The difficulty is that the theorist measures every- 
thing here by a standard of price that exists in England 
or some other foreign country, and finds the domestic 
price by adding to the foreign price the cost of removing 

120 



TiiK PoLK'v OF Protection 

the obstacles necessary to land a given article in our 
market. It is immaterial, so far as the theory goes, 
whether those obstacles arc natural or artificial ones set 
up at the custom-house. There are certain industries 
to-dav in this country which are protected from for- 
eign competition by obstacles that are insuperable. In 
these cases the Chinese wall towers to the skies. The 
protection is equi\alent to a rate of duty infinitely 
high. W^hat conditions prevail in such industries? For 
instance, distance with regard to many articles of com- 
merce has by the invention of modern times been prac- 
tically done away with. But it is not yet possible to 
land on our shores European newspapers on the morn- 
ing of their publication. If what is accomplished by dis- 
tance were accomplished by a tariff, we should hear a 
great deal about the terrible exactions of the daily news- 
paper trust, the tax upon light and intelligence and the 
monstrous burdens laid upon our people. But since this 
obstacle has not been produced by the tariff", it has not 
occurred to any one to deny that our daily newspaper 
press, though far from perfection in many respects and 
partaking of our national faults, gives more for the 
money than any other newspaper press in the world. . . . 
The free-traders, as if the classification settled the 
whole question, divide mankind into consumers and 
producers. Then they assume on this artificial line that 
as consumption makes production necessary, and we 
never consume simply because we have produced, we 
should only have a care for the immediate interest of 
the consumer. They do not consider the fact that in 
order to be consumers men must first be producers. It is 

121 



Samuel W. McCall 

necessary for man to consume, and it is first necessary, 
therefore, for him to produce. A policy which would 
regard him simply as a consumer would leave out half 
of the problem. The immediate interest of the consumer 
would require the breaking down of every tariff wall. 

Things for the day would doubtless be cheaper, but 
when millions of men thereby cease to be producers 
they very quickly cease to be consumers and star\e. 

In 1899 Mr. McCall was made a member of 
the Committee on Ways and Means, and he 
continued to serve on that committee until his 
retirement from the House fourteen years later. 
At the time of his first appointment, the Dingley 
Act of 1897 was in force. That measure had 
been framed when public sentiment was in a state 
of violent reaction against the Wilson-Gorman 
Act of 1894. The duties were therefore made 
unreasonably high, even from the standpoint of 
a protectionist, and it was easy to see that the 
adoption of the measure would be followed im- 
mediately by agitation for its revision. When 
that measure was before the House, Mr. McCall 
urged that the schedules be made more moder- 
ate in order that they might have some chance 
of permanence. In the debate on March 29, 
1897, he said : — 

With all due respect to the Committee on Ways 
and Means, and its chairman, whose fine capacity I 
122 



The Policy of Protection 

admire, I think we might safely moderate some of the 
duties of this schedule. Our manufacturers and busi- 
ness men want a taritF law which will stand. They are 
weary of being forever upon the rack, of passing through 
the crucible of tariff agitation every four years, and of 
having the price of every article of the commerce and 
trade of this great country constantly in danger of 
change by tariff legislation. What they long for is in- 
dustrial peace and a settled and permanent order, so 
that they can mature their plans for years in the future, 
instead of working from hand to mouth and skulking 
between Presidential elections. We should be careful 
not to put in any of the schedules of our law an invita- 
tion to further agitation, or place there the germs of a 
new reaction. After the disastrous experience of the last 
four years, the country is prepared to accept a broad 
and rational application of the doctrine of protection; 
but the course of moderation is the course of safety. 

It had been urged by the friends of the Ding- 
ley bill that the Republican victory in 1896 had 
been so overwhelming and the Democratic Party 
was so disrupted that no opposition to the Re- 
publican programme need be feared. Mr. McCall 
did not share this view. He pointed out that 
while a million Democrats had voted for Mc- 
Kinlev, six and a half millions had voted for 
Bryan. 

Let us, then, take counsel of our reason. Let us 
pass a law with a moderate but sufficient measure of 

123 



Samuel W. McCall 

protection, and not put weapons in the hands of our 
adversaries and, by resorting to any extremes, alienate 
those splendid allies who came to us from the Demo- 
cratic Party. 

It was in this speech that Mr. McCall first 
stated his conception of the principles which 
should govern the formulation of a protective 
tariff. 

The argument advanced upon this floor that we 
should make protective duties not merely cover the 
difference in cost of production here and abroad, but 
also the difference in rates of freight from foreign ports 
and from our inland points to our seaports, is one the 
ingenuity of which I can admire much more than its 
force. The people of our Northern Atlantic seaboard 
do not have direct access to the iron ores or coal. Their 
territory is poor in natural resources. In that respect 
they are at a great disadvantage with the States of Penn- 
sylvania and Alabama and Tennessee. But they have 
one great natural advantage. They have the sea. In 
my humble opinion the doctrine of protection does not 
require this to be taken from them any more than it 
requires the coal mines of Pennsylvania to be closed in 
order that the sea may be more profitable to those upon 
its shores. Is that doctrine to be carried to the extent 
of holding that duties shall be levied and Pennsylvania 
and Alabama and Tennessee shall be protected, not 
merely to the extent of the difference in the cost of 
production in those States and abroad, but that they 
shall be protected against the beneficent forces of na- 

.124 



Tin: Policy of Protection 

ture which it is the birthright of other Icss-favorcd por- 
tions of their own land to enjoy ? This freight argu- 
ment requires that the people of New York and the 
New England States, with their ships swinging idly at 
their wharves, should refuse a service which would be 
performed for them without cost by the free winds of 
heaven, in order to support long lines of railroads, and 
that in the carrying of heavy freights over rivers and 
mountains and hundreds and perhaps thousands of miles 
of territory there should be uselessly consumed the coal 
which a kind Providence had stored up for the use of 
future generations. This argument is largely based on 
the theorv that the people were made for the railroads 
and not the railroads for the people. There is no place 
in the economy of this nation, or of the race, for such 
wanton waste as this. It would be as rational for you 
to bar out the sunshine in order to stimulate the manu- 
facture of electric light. 

That is not the sort of protection in which I believe. 
If a given industry is established here, if we have nat- 
ural advantages for carrying it on, then the amount of 
protection which can fairly be asked is a duty which 
will suffice to cover the difference in the labor and 
other cost of producing the article here and producing 
it abroad, and a slight additional margin to protect our 
producers in times of industrial depression or overpro- 
duction abroad. If you go beyond that, you are liable 
to drift upon the rocks of extortion, of monopoly, and 
ultimately of Populism. 

In the debate in April, 1902, on a bill for the 
establishment of reciprocal trade relations with 

125 



Samuel W. McCall 

Cuba, Mr. McCall again indicated some of the 
limitations which should be observed in the ap- 
plication of the principle of protection. This is 
not an immutable law, operating like the law of 
gravitation, without regard to changes of time or 
circumstance. It should be applied when it will 
work to the national advantage, and not other- 
wise. In discussing the advisability of attempting 
to foster the growing of sugar cane in the United 
States, Mr. McCall said: — 

As to the future of cane sugar in the United States, 
I can see little ground for optimism. It seems to me 
it cannot stand beet-sugar competition at home when 
that industry shall be developed. People who are en- 
gaged in that industry, if they take a far look ahead, 
will prepare to use their fields for some other purpose. 
Cuba is one of the few countries in the world where 
cane sugar can be raised in competition with the beet 
sugar of other nations. They need only to plant their 
cane on the average once in every ten years. In Loui- 
siana it must be planted every two years at a cost, as 
was testified, of twenty dollars an acre. It is a rational 
application of protection to develop those industries 
which we are by nature fitted to carry on, but a mere exotic 
industry, which we are not fitted to carry on and which 
must be maintained by a perpetual tax upon the Amer- 
ican people, is something which does not come within 
any proper application of the doctrine of protection. 

If the soil, the sunshine, and the air of Cuba will do 
work for the American people which those same natural 
126 



The Police' of Protection 

agents refuse to do in our own country, it would be 
the grossest kind of waste for us to refuse to accept 
the benefit of those blessings and forever to put upon 
poor human nature the burden of doing the work which 
Nature herself would do for us with her lavish hand. 
VVc have enough of avenues for the profitable employ- 
ment of labor without taxing ourselves to maintain in- 
dustries which can never be profitably maintained. 

In his discussion of the Payne bill (April i, 
1909), he again stated this underlying principle 
with great clearness and force: — 

The only justifiable object of a protective tariff is to 
develop in our nation the industries which it is naturally 
fitted to carry on. It should not have for an object to 
divert labor into channels where it would be employed 
at a disadvantage. The gospel that labor in itself is a 
blessing is preached by those who have practiced it but 
little. A country with poor natural resources and a ster- 
ile soil, where a man could wring from nature only with 
great difficulty the bare means of subsistence, would be 
the ideal sort of a country, according to some gentle- 
men's ideas of labor. There every one would have an 
opportunity to work and to work hard. But such a coun- 
try would be a proper home for a penal colony and not 
for a nation. [Applause.] 

Blessed as we are with an unexampled variety of 
splendid natural resources we should not by legislation 
make our country to any degree the sort of a land to 
which I have just referred. We can emplov our labor 
with profit upon those natural resources which are ours 

127 



Samuel W. McCall 

beyond question, and we do not need to go into the 
hothouse business and to divert the labor of America 
into doing those things which the sunshine and the cli- 
mate of other lands would do for us with only a slight 
contribution from labor. Where we are fitted by nature 
to carry on an industry with a given amount of labor 
as well as it can be carried on abroad, we should de- 
velop and encourage such an industry ; but when we 
embark upon lines which must be followed permanently 
at a disadvantage, we waste labor and do violence to 
the laws of nature. Where the difference in the labor 
cost of production is caused, not by the greater amount 
of labor required, but by the greater wage, there pro- 
tective laws should intervene. Let us employ our labor 
in doing those things which we can do to the best advan- 
tage and permit foreign nations to do the work which 
they have greater natural advantages fordoing, and then 
exchange our products with them. That is the sound 
basis for industry and for international trade. There is 
a great deal of truth in the celebrated saying of Ben- 
tham : " Industry makes of government as modest a re- 
quest as that of Diogenes to Alexander, ' Stand out of 
my sunshine.' " 

The Dingley Act had not been long in opera- 
tion when the outbreak of war with Spain raised 
a set of new questions which for several years quite 
obscured the tariff. But on the restoration of 
peace, agitation for a reduction of duties again 
set in and became more and more insistent. The 
Democrats had so fully committed themselves 
128 



The Policy of Protection 

to the economic hallucinations of Mr. Bryan as 
to make their party an object of fear and appre- 
hension. Extreme protectionists, incited by Mark 
Hanna to "stand pat," contended that when the 
tariff was revised it must be done by its friends. 
Moderate men, who only asked that the sched- 
ules might be put upon a rational basis, had little 
to hope for trom either of these groups. But the 
demand for revision persisted, and the Repub- 
lican Party committed itself to undertake it. The 
need for it was brought before the House in 
January, 1906, in a speech by Mr. McCall which 
attracted attention throughout the countrv. He 
told the House of the growing demand on the 
part of great industries that they be relieved of the 
outworn schedules of the Dingley Act. In defense 
of the outspoken sentiment of Massachusetts he 
said : — 

What is her fault to-day ? It is that under her system 
of untrammeled freedom of speech and of public discus- 
sion a great and increasing number of her people have 
dared to think and to say that the whirling changes of 
the nine years that have elapsed since the passage of 
the Dingley Act have thrown some of those great sched- 
ules out of gear with existing conditions, and that some 
duties, just, or at least harmless at the time they were 
enacted, have, by reason of industrial combination to 
stifle internal competition, and from other reasons, be- 
come exorbitant, and instead of protecting the people 

129 



Samuel \V. McCall 

they are shielding monopoly and aiding it to pick the 
pockets of the people. [Applause.] 

And they are somewhat weary of seeing that ancient 
friend of ours paraded uponceremonial occasions, namely, 
"If the tariff is to be revised, let it be revised by its 
friends." If the tariff can ever be revised by its friends, 
can It not be revised by a Congress two thirds of whose 
members in both the Senate and the House are Repub- 
licans ? [Applause.] 

I think that our noble governor never said a truer 
word — that a truer word never was spoken — than 
when he said that upon a " stand-pat platform " last 
fall the State would have been lost to the Republicans. 

Now, the people of Massachusetts are only thinking 
a little in advance of some of the people — not all of 
the other people — of this country. Soon this idea will 
invade New York and Illinois and Ohio, gathering force 
as it moves; and I say to you that if we do not treat pro- 
tection as a rational principle, instead of a cast-iron, 
immutable set of schedules, we are liable to have the 
Democratic Party, and then possibly the deluge. [Laugh- 
ter and applause.] 

It was in commenting upon this speech that 
the New York " Sun " declared Mr. McCall to 
be "one of the ablest men in public life," and a 
few days later it again characterized him as " per- 
haps the most intellectual man in the House and 
without doubt the most independent." 

On March 21, 1906, Mr. McCall, on behalf 
of the Republican members of the Massachusetts 
130 



The Policy ok Protf.ction 

delegation in Congress, addressed a letter to the 
chairman of the Ways and Means Committee 
of the House, calling his attention to the fact 
that the last Republican national platform de- 
clared that "rates of duty should he readjusted 
only when conditions have so changed that the 
public interest demands their alteration," and 
that in the judgment of Massachusetts Repub- 
licans conditions had so changed as to demand 
readjustment, and asking that the Committee 
begin the consideration of the tariff with a view 
to its revision. To this the chairman replied that 
a majority of the Republican members of the 
House were opposed to such action, and added, 
" Congress is not prepared to review the tariff 
schedules in that calm, judicial frame of mind so 
necessary to the proper preparation of a tariff 
act so near the coming Congressional elections." 
But the events of the next few months showed 
that Mr. McCall's statement that "the people 
of Massachusetts were only thinking a little in 
advance of some of the people " was well-founded. 
In 1908 President Taft was elected upon a plat- 
form which definitely committed the party to a 
revision of the tariff. 

When the Republican Party finally undertook 
the work of tariff revision, Mr. McCall was not 
only an influential factor in bringing it about, but 



Samuel W. McCall 

as one of the oldest members of the Committee 
on Ways and Means he had an important part in 
the framing of the new measure and in explain- 
ing it to the House. In the form in which it 
passed that body it was a sincere effort to revise 
the tariff in accordance with the pledges made in 
the Republican platform. Even as amended by 
the Senate and finally enacted, the New York 
"Nation," which has no bias in favor of protec- 
tion, declared it to be the best tariff ever enacted 
by the Republican Party. And Mr. McCall's 
judgment upon the completed act was that it 
represented " the greatest reduction that has been 
made in the tariff at any single time since our 
first revenue law was signed by George Wash- 
ington." 

Mr. McCall's chief speech upon the Payne 
bill was made in the House April i, 1909. He 
was far from endorsing all the features of the act. 
He had no fancy for the inheritance tax nor for 
the tax on tea, nor did he approve of all the in- 
creases and reductions which were made. But the 
bill dealt with more than five thousand articles 
of commerce, and such a measure necessarily en- 
tailed much compromise of opinion. After a pro- 
longed debate, it passed the House by a vote of 
217 to 161. In the Senate it suffered the fate 
which usually befalls revenue measures at the 

'3^ 



The Policy of Protixtion 

hands of that body, and on its return to the 
House from the conference committee there was 
serious question as to whether the Republican 
majority would accept it. Mr. McCall, as indi- 
cated above, was not satisfied with the bill in all 
its parts when it was first reported to the House. 
He was less satisfied with it in the form in which 
it passed the House, and his dissatisfaction was 
vastly increased by the changes made by the Sen- 
ate. Nevertheless, he urged the House to accept 
the conference report. Much as he objected to 
many features of the bill, he believed that it was 
a great improvement upon the existing law. He 
felt also that the honor of the Republican Party 
and its dutv to its President required the passage 
of the bill. The party was pledged to a revision 
of the tariflf downward, and while this bill did not 
go as far as Mr. McCall wished, he believed 
that its rejection would lead to the abandonment 
at that session of all further attempts to reduce 
the duties. 

When the tariff acjain came before Congress 
in the summer of 191 i, Mr. McCall was able 
to justify his faith in the Payne bill by point- 
ing to accomplished results. He was able to show 
that in the fiscal year ending June 30, 191 1, the 
free imports into the United States had been 
^770,000,000, while the dutiable imports had 

^3i 



Samuel W. McCall 

amounted to only $749,000,000, upon which 
duties amounting to $3 13,000,000, or an average 
ad valorem of 20.54 per cent, had been collected. 
This was a lower ad valorem than had been im- 
posed either by the Wilson bill, the Dingley 
bill, or the McKinley bill. "And yet gentle- 
men say that this was revision upward." At the 
same time the total exports from the United 
States exceeded two billion dollars — the largest 
in the history of the country. 

An important phase of tariff legislation with 
which Mr. McCall had much to do concerned 
reciprocity with neighboring countries. The ac- 
ceptance of the principle was not inconsistent 
with the maintenance of a protective policy, and 
many of the most ardent advocates of extreme 
protection had also supported various forms of 
reciprocity. In one of his first speeches on this 
subject, Mr. McCall said: — 

I think "reciprocitv" is a word that no gentleman 
on either side of the House can properly take offense 
at. I believe that the first reciprocity treaty was negoti- 
ated by Richard Cobden, and that the greatest advocate 
of reciprocity in our time was William Mclvinley. The 
name of one is a synonym for free trade, and the name 
of the other is a synonym for protection. 

Reciprocity goes upon the theory that there are often- 
times, in the relations of two peoples, conditions that 
make it peculiarly proper that they shall have reciprocal 



The Policy of Protection 

trade arrangements with each other. The position of 
Cuba, her political relations to this country, the fact 
that American interests predominate there, the fact that 
we huv nearly all she has to sell, and sell her a great 
portion of what she buvs, make her case, it seems to 
me, as strong a one as could be imagined for the appli- 
cation of the principle of reciprocity. 

In the case of Cuba the argument for reci- 
procity might be based either upon the economic 
advantages which would result to both coun- 
tries or upon the moral obligation resting upon 
the United States to do all that was in its power 
to set Cuba upon its feet. Mr. McCall believed 
that the policy was sound from whichever stand- 
point it was approached. The chief opposition to 
the measure on economic grounds came from the 
beet-sugar interests, which attempted to win sup- 
port for their cause by conjuring up the Sugar 
Trust. In the debatCjOn April 14, 1902, Mr. Mc- 
Call said : — 

I do not think it is exactly fair to discredit the 
cause of Cuba bv bringing in the Sugar Trust or by 
holding up the Sugar Trust as the beneficiary of this 
legislation. Of course we understand that the Sugar 
Trust is a bogv that it is always safe to batter, but I do 
not think that in the consideration of an economic 
question we should be frightened from looking at 
the facts as thev are in the light of economic principles. 
... I for one decline now, as I did two years ago, to 

135 



Samuel W. McCall 

be frightened from the calm consideration of an economic 
measure by this conjuring with the octopus. . . . 

Mr. McCall then suggested some of the prob- 
able consequences of the rejection of the measure. 
Suppose Congress should refuse to foster Cuban 
industry, and that in consequence the Cuban 
people should suffer such financial distress as to 
lead to outbreaks of disorder in the island. For 
the protection of life and property and the rees- 
tablishmentof stable conditions, the Government 
of the United States might assume permanent 
control of Cuba. 

What will become of the beet-sugar industry then ? 
I confess it is hardly a satisfactory answer which gentle- 
men give to that proposition, to say to us grandly that 
we will face that crisis when we reach it. 

It is a simple question : What will the beet-sugar in- 
dustry do if Cuba is annexed ? It will not meet the point 
to say that they will then have to produce sugar under 
a protected market and with severe anti-immigration and 
anti-contract-labor laws, because the provisions of this 
bill will put upon Cuba, if she shall assent to them, our 
own contract-labor laws and will put her under our 
protected markets, so that practically all her supplies 
bought from other nations will be purchased in this 
market. 

If our beet-sugar industry cannot hold its own with 
Cuba, with a specific duty equal to 67.5 of the cost of 
Cuban production, what will happen when Cuban sugar 
136 



The Policy of Protection 

has absolutclv free access to our market ? The great 
threat to the sugar iiuiustrv of this country d»)es not 
come from this bill, but it will come from a failure to pass 
the bill. It will come from a condition which makes an- 
nexation necessarv. Viewed, therefore, simply from its 
economic aspects as a measure to promote international 
trade, I think it is entirely clear that the pending bill will 
be for the interests of both countries and will injure no 
class of people in either nation. 

When the Payne bill was before the House, 
Mr. McCall urged that the peculiar geographical 
relations between the United States and Canada 
be considered, and that the duties upon certain 
products be mutually remitted. The argument 
in favor of such a policy with regard to coal was 
stated in these words : — 

I will now speak concerning the paragraph for reci- 
procity on coal, which, in effect, means that if Canada 
will admit our coal free of duty we will extend the 
same privilege to her coal. In the last fiscal year we ex- 
ported to Canada 8,592,296 tons of coal and imported 
from the same country 1,297,405 tons. It will be seen 
that our exports to Canada considerably exceed our im- 
ports. Each country has a duty against the coal of the 
other. The coal question as between the two countries 
largely resolves itself into a question of freight. A glance 
at the map will show that. The great Province of On- 
tario is remote from the Canadian coal-fields and near 
to our own coal in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West 
Virginia. On the other hand, our northeastern seaboard 

137 



Samuel W. McCall 

is remote from our own coal-fields and contiguous to 
the fields of Nova Scotia. By setting up mutual barriers 
against coal it can be transported from the mines of 
Canada farther into the central parts of that country 
and can also be carried from our mines farther into 
those regions of this country which would naturally be 
served by the Canadian coal. These tariffs are expended 
in each case in paying the useless hauling of freight. If 
we remove them, we shall supply from our mines the 
territory of Canada naturally tributary to them, and our 
own people, who are nearer the Canadian mines, may 
have an opportunity to get access to them. Why should 
each nation create artificial barriers in order that labor 
may be uselessly employed in carrying this heavy com- 
modity? The reciprocal removal of the coal duties will 
thus take off a tax upon the coal miner and the con- 
sumer of both countries and will benefit both. 

More far-reaching than either of these pro- 
posals was the measure introduced into the 
House in 191 1 which provided remission of duties 
upon a considerable number of Canadian prod- 
ucts in return for similar concessions by Canada. 
The action taken bv Canada in response to the 
advances made to her has removed the question 
from the field of practical politics, but the episode 
played too important a part in our history to 
be ignored. For many years statesmen in both 
countries had been impressed by the fact that 
purely artificial barriers prevented trade from fol- 

i3« 



The Policy of Protection 

lowing its natural channels. On her northern 
border Canada was lost in the uninhabitable re- 
gions of the Arctic. To the east and west she was 
hemmed in bv vast expanses of ocean. To the 
south hiv a rich and powerful neighbor, from 
whom she was separated by only an imaginary 
line, and from whom, in spite of her compara- 
tively small population, she purchased more 
goods than the United States sold to P>ance,and 
almost as much as we sold to Germany. 1 he 
value of the exports from the United States to 
Canada equaled the value of the exports from 
Great Britain to her Indian b.mpire. The great 
frontier of thirty-seven hundred miles — the 
longest frontier between any two countries — 
did not offer a single natural barrier to the freest 
intercourse. It is not strange that many states- 
men in both countries had sought to remove the 
barriers created by law. Both Blaine and Mc- 
Kinley had advocated it. President Roosevelt 
approved of it, and President Taft made it one 
of the chief measures of his administration. It 
was at the request of President Taft that Mr. 
McCall introduced the bill and took charge of it 
in the House. His chief speech upon it was, in 
point of clear analysis, learning, and eloquence, 
one of the most important which he delivered 
during his whole term in Congress. Opponents 

1 39 



Samuel W. McCall 

of the bill cited the example of Bismarck who 
had imposed duties upon imports of agricultural 
products into Germany. To this Mr. McCall 
replied, "Bismarck did not establish agricultural 
duties so much for the sake of agriculture as to 
placate the powerful agrarian element and estab- 
lish generally in Germany the policy of protec- 
tion." He also showed how in other ways the 
agrarian element dictated the policy of the Ger- 
man Government. 

Many persons feared that the cheaper agri- 
cultural lands of Canada would prove attractive 
to young men from the United States, and cited 
the State of Iowa, whose population had de- 
creased in the preceding decade, as an example 
of the results to be expected. To this Mr. Mc- 
Call said : — 

Young men have gone from Iowa because they could 
get more land in Canada than at home. . . . Suppose 
they shall found upon the eastern slopes of the Can- 
adian Rockies a newer and a fairer Iowa. Who is there 
who will not wish them Godspeed ? [Applause.] 

Again, the opposition urged that just as the 
farmers of New England had gone down before 
the competition of the Western farmers, so the 
latter would be the victims of the farmers of 
Canada. To this Mr. McCall said: — 
140 



Tnr Policy of Protection 

So far as competition with Canada is concerned, if 
North Dakota, which has a longer summer and a shorter 
winter than Canada, can be a part of the same agricul- 
tural domain and can compete with Kansas and Iowa 
and Oklahoma and those wonderfully rich lands toward 
the south, lands as fertile as those in Campania, where, 
as Virgil said — 

*• Summer borrows months beyond her own ; 
Twice the teeming flocks arc fruitful. 
Twice the laden orchards groan " — 

if North Dakota can compete with lands like these, 
what has she to fear from the more frosty Alberta ? 
What has Minnesota to fear from Manitoba when she 
can prosper side by side with Iowa and Nebraska? 

The opposition really centered upon the argu- "^ 
mcnt that the adoption of the bill would lower 
the price received by the American farmer for 
his wheat. Mr. McCall showed conclusively 
that so long as the United States exported wheat, 
the price received by the American farmer would 
be fixed in the market which took his surplus, 
and he concluded his speech with this beautiful 
passage : — 

The boundary line between these two countries 
stretches, as I have said, for thirty-seven hundred 
miles. There is no modern fort along that line. 
After the War of 1 812, by the Rush-Bagehot Treaty, 
we agreed to have no further armaments upon the 
Great Lakes, although two of the chief battles of that 

141 



Samuel W. McCall 

war had been fought upon them. Great cities, with 
/ billions of dollars of property, with fabulous wealth, 
' have grown up along that boundary. They are not de- 

j fended by a single gun, but there are no cities in all 

/ the world that are more safe, because they are fortified 

and guarded by the good sense, the common interests, 
and the friendly sentiments of two great nations. [Ap- 
plause.] We have forts, it is true, and guns along that 
line, but they are antiquated and the survivals of a time 
long past. And we have made the dreams of the poets 
come true, for the boys wage mimic wars in the crum- 
blinor embrasures of the forts, the birds build their nests 
in the lips of the cannon, and little children play upon 
\ them and clasp their silent throats. We can just as 
safely dismantle the tariff forts between the two coun- 
tries. Canada is one with us in sentiment. She is one 
with us in all the strongest ties that can draw nations 
together; and I trust that this side of the House will 
vie with that side of the House and support the 
President of the United States in the enlightened and 
^ civilized policy proposed by this bill. [Prolonged 
applause.] 

f The measure was duly adopted by Congress, 

' and was made the issue in the ensuing electoral 
campaign in Canada. There it was defeated, 

; largely through the fears aroused by the levity 
and irresponsible utterances of an American poli- 
tician, who seemed not to realize that his occu- 
pancy of the high office of Speaker of the House 

I gave to his words abroad a weight to which their 

{ 142 



Tur. Policy of Protection 

intrinsic merit did not entitle them, and which 
they did not have at home. When the suhject 
came before Congress again in the summer of 
1912, Mr. McCall said: — 

Reciprocity was pressed upon the attention of Can- 
ada as involving annexation to this country. If I were 
to give an opinion upon that point, I should say that 
those political tics are most apt to be permanent which 
coincide with the material interests of a people, and 
that such tics arc subjected to a severe strain when they 
are maintained at the sacrifice of natural advantages. 
If I am correct, then reciprocity would certainly not 
weaken the present political relations of Canada. Polit- 
ical relations are in greater danger from laws which 
stand in the path of commerce than they are in from 
laws which recognize commercial rights. The Tories 
of Lord North's breed on both sides of the Atlantic 
should remember that taxation laws framed to divert 
trade from its natural channels will be more fraui^ht 
with danger to the continued possession by Great 
Britain of her colonies than the more enlightened policy 
which she has recently been pursuing. If the great 
Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan and Manitoba 
are prevented from trading with their neighbors across 
the border, in Minnesota and other States, and if the 
price of their continued allegiance to the British Crown 
is to compel them to send their produce two thousand 
miles to the seaboard and then across the ocean, and 
to pay preferential duties of thirty-three per cent in 
order to force them to consume British goods, then I 

H3 



/ 



Samuel W. McCall 

think no better way could be devised to lead those great 
Provinces to drift away from Great Britain and to cause 
the dismemberment of the Empire. 

But this is no concern of ours. Canada must work 
out her own destiny. It is for her to say whether 
the obstruction of the pathway to her natural markets, 
whether, indeed, complete non-intercourse with the 
United States, will be the tie to bind her more firmly to 
the motherland. Even in that event I imagine we shall 
be able to survive. This arrangement will benefit us, 
but Canada relatively much more. 



CHAPTER V 

THE SPANISH WAR AND ITS PROBLEMS 

THE presidential election of 1896 turned 
chiefly upon the money question. The ex- 
plicit declaration in the Republican platform in 
favor of the gold standard and the equally expli- 
cit declaration of the Democrats in favor of the 
free coinage of silver, together with the well- 
known views of that party's nominee, caused the 
question as to what should be the country's mon- 
etary standard to overshadow all others. For 
almost a generation, however, another question 
had vexed succeeding administrations at Wash- 
ington, each of which had been glad to hand 
over the problem to the next for solution. The 
island of Cuba, a colonial dependency of Spain, 
had been in a condition of disorder for many years. 
Its proximity to the United States and the ex- 
tent of American interests in its commerce, and 
the stories of the inhumanity connected with the 
warfare in the island, made the restoration of or- 
der a matter of pressing importance to the Amer- 
ican Government. When feeling in this country 
was already almost at the breaking point, the 

145 



Samuel W. McCall 

American battleship Maine was sunk, on Febru- 
ary 15, 1898, in the harbor of Havana. The 
cause of this disaster still remains unknown. 
Nothing, however, has ever been disclosed which 
in any way implicated the Government of Spain. 
But whatever the cause, the conviction grew that 
the dominion of Spain in Cuba must cease. In 
Congress, so far as is known, there was absolute 
unanimity of opinion on this point. The only 
question which still remained open was as to the 
method by which the desired result should be 
accomplished. It is now known, on the testimony 
of General Woodford, American Minister to 
Spain in i 898, that the Spanish Government also 
saw that withdrawal from Cuba was inevitable, 
and was prepared to submit. He has given it as 
his opinion that a further delav of twenty-four 
hours would have resulted in the acceptance by 
Spain of proposals entirely satisfactory to the 
United States. But Congress was bent on war, 
and only such a President as Grover Cleveland 
or Thomas B. Reed could have withstood the 
pressure brought to bear in support of that pol- 
icy. President McKinley could not, bv the wild- 
est flight of the imagination, be compared in stav- 
ing power with such men as Cleveland or Reed, 
and the war came. 

When it was seen that hostilities might be 
146 



The SrANisn War and its Problems 

imminent, a resolution was introduced in the 
House appropriating fifty million dollars to be 
expended at the discretion of the President for 
the national defense. Mr. McCall supported this 
resolution, " because it is a prudent measure of 
defense and is in no sense an act of aggressive 
war." The bill passed the House unanimously. 
After the receipt of the report of the commission 
appointed to investigate the sinkingof the Maine, 
— an investigation in which the Government of 
Spain was not allowed to participate, — President 
McKinley threw up his hands and transmitted a 
message in which he said, " The issue is now with 
Congress." In the early hours of April 19,1898, 
the House adopted a joint resolution making 
demands upon Spain which inevitably entailed 
war. Mr. McCall was one of the six members 
of the House who voted against it. Of these six 
who were strongly in favor of the utmost utiliza- 
tion of the resources of diplomacy before resort- 
ing to war, — a course which General Woodford 
believed would be successful, — four had served 
in the Civil War and knew what war meant. 
The other two were too voung for such service. 
The attitude of Mr. McCall toward the war 
with Spain was like that of Lord Bryce toward 
the South African War. Bryce looked upon that 
war as unjustifiable, but having been begun he 

H7 



Samuel W. McCall 

assisted the Government in fighting it out and 
bringing it to a conclusion. So likewise Mr. 
McCall voted in Congress for all the measures 
which were necessary for the prosecution of hos- 
tilities after they had once been begun. In the 
discussion of the war revenue bill, on April 28, 
1898, after saying that there had been differ- 
ences of opinion as to " the wisdom and the 
justice and the expediency of this war," Mr. 
McCall continued : — 

Since war has been declared by the high constitu- 
tional authority of this Government, and our warships 
have been set in motion, and our youth have been 
summoned from their homes, — destined, perhaps, like 
the youth of Athens, " to perish from the city like the 
spring from the year," — the high, and urgent, and 
patriotic duty that is upon us now is to give to those 
men whom we have summoned into a position of dan- 
ger our prompt, ungrudging, and generous support. 

The war with Spain was in itself a matter of 
small moment. To be sure, it disclosed that a 
training camp in the United States was attended 
with greater danger to the enlisted men than a 
battle with the Spanish forces, and the adminis- 
trative methods of the War Department were 
almost criminal in their inefficiency. The chief 
importance of the war with Spain, however, lies 
in the annexation of territories which are not now 
148 



The Spanish War and its Problems 

and never can be fit for admission to the Federal 
Union. For the first time in our history territory- 
was annexed which, from its situation and the 
character ot its inhabitants, can never be held as 
anything else than a dependency. It has been the 
great good fortune of the United States that prior 
to 1898 every one of its territorial acquisitions 
consisted of lands possessing almost no inhab- 
itants and well fitted by nature to become the 
home of people of the white race. With the ac- 
quisition of the Philippines the countrv entered 
upon a course which necessitated the holding of 
tropical territories not only unfit for settlement 
by a white population, but also inhabited by 
some seven million people who accepted Ameri- 
can rule only when it was forced upon them at 
the point of the bayonet. The situation of the 
islands also involved their possessors in Asiatic 
politics to a degree incommensurate with our in- 
terests in that quarter. 

The acquisition of Porto Rico, in view of its 
proximity to the United States, was natural, and 
if it had been followed bv the bestowal of Amer- 
ican citizenship upon its inhabitants would have 
met with general acquiescence on their part. The 
Philippines were annexed apparently because Pres- 
ident McKlnley did not know what else to do 
with them. There have been few instances in the 



Samuel W. McCall 

history of the EngHsh-speaking race when poli- 
cies of the first importance have been determined 
by a man who seemed to be actuated so Httle by 
any guiding principle. A few months after the 
annexation, when the United States was bending 
all its efforts to subjugating the Filipino insur- 
gents, — a task which occupied it for some years, 
— President McKlnley solemnly declared in a 
message to Congress, " I had every reason to be- 
lieve, and I still believe, that this transfer of sov- 
ereignty was in accordance with the wishes and 
the aspirations of the great mass of the Filipino 
people." 

In the decision that the Philippines should 
be acquired by the United States, the House of 
Representatives had no voice, but their acquisi- 
tion and that of Porto Rico raised a set of ques- 
tions in constitutional law and governmental 
policy which were entirely new in American his- 
tory. Their solution was made the more diffi- 
cult by the fact that the Government had adopted 
no policy with reference to which its action on 
measures affecting our colonial dependencies 
should be framed. Whether legislation was to 
be formulated for a group of tropical islands which 
we expected to hold in permanent subjection, or 
in which we expected to establish an autono- 
mous government under an American protec- 
150 



The Spanish War and its Problems 

torate, or from which we intended soon to with- 
draw, leaving the government in the hands of 
those to whom nature gave it — nothing of this 
had been decided. In the debate on the Army 
Bill in December, 1900, Mr. McCall argued 
that it was the duty of the United States to 
make up its mind as to what disposition it in- 
tended to make of the islands: — 

It seems to mc the time has arrived at last when the 
question of the ultimate relations of this country to the 
Philippine Archipelago should be considered and our 
position as a nation declared. Before the treaty we 
were told that the question could not with propriety 
be discussed; that we were at war with Spain, and that 
a discussion of that character should wait the return of 
peace. After peace had been declared, and we had 
bought from her the civil war which we had at least 
encouraged against her, we were told that it would not 
do to discuss the ultimate relations of the Philippine 
Islands with us while they were in what was called a 
state of rebellion against their purchasers. We have 
been told, however, with a good deal of iteration by 
our generals and commissioners and other civil officers, 
that the organized rebellion was broken up; that an 
appearance of war was only kept up by the hope of a 
political occurrence in this country which has not taken 
place. 

It the question cannot with propriety be discussed 
to-day, if we must wait until the Philippine Islands are 
as peaceful as Ohio or Massachusetts, I fear that it 



Samuel W. McCall 

will never become proper for us to discuss what our 
duties and our interests demand, but we shall be thrust 
along to one ill-considered step after another until our 
position shall become irretrievably fixed. In my opinion 
our policy in the Philippines should have been declared 
at the outset and should have been a similar policy to 
that which we declared for Cuba. Unfortunately, our 
course was consistent with no other theory than that 
the Filipino had been fighting simply for a change of 
masters and that the yoke of the United States might 
be substituted for the yoke of Spain. If we had prac- 
ticed a similar policy in Cuba, which some influential 
gentlemen seem to regret, who can doubt that we 
should have had a war in Cuba as we have one in the 
Philippine Islands? 

In his discussion as to what the policy of 
America toward the Philippines should be, Mr. 
McCall resorted in his accustomed manner to 
fundamental principles. He pointed out that, 
geographically and ethnologically, the people of 
those islands and the people of the United States 
are poles apart. This in itself constituted such 
an obvious barrier that no advocate of retaining 
the islands had ever suggested that they be 
made a part of the American political system. 
The islands were also unfit to become a colony 
to which the surplus population of the United 
States could be sent. Even if we had a surplus 
population, the white race cannot colonize the 
152 



The Spanish War and its Problems 

tropics, and particularly it cannot colonize the 
Philippines which are already as densely populated 
as New Kngland. But all of Mr. McCall's ar- 
guments on the Philippines come hack in the 
last analysis to the fundamental precept that 
one people has no right to subjugate another. 
He accepted literally the doctrine of the Dec- 
laration of Independence, that all governments 
" derive their just powers from the consent of 
the governed." But it was said that the Fili- 
pinos were incapable of self-government. To this 
Mr. McCall replied that doubtless they could 
not maintain a government which would rank 
very high according to American standards, but 
whatever government they fashioned for them- 
selves would be better than any government that 
could be forced upon them by an alien power. 
" The Filipino," he said, " does not, perhaps, 
come up to Anglo-Saxon standards and should 
not be judged by them. . . . He seems ad- 
vanced enough, however, to fight for his free- 
dom. Give him the benefit of that." 

At a time when governmental expenditures 
are increasing at an appalling rate, the cost of 
holding the Philippines is an important consid- 
eration. In his speech on the Army Bill, De- 
cember 5, 1900, Mr. McCall said, "As a portion 
of the cost of retaining the Philippine Islands 

'53 



Samuel W. McCall 

we are ro include the maintenance of the greater 
part of the army established by this very bill"; 
and he proceeded to show that the amount ex- 
pended by the United States for military pur- 
poses was greater than the combined expenditure 
of France and Germany. Men who have held 
high office in the Philippines have solemnly as- 
sured us that the possession of the islands costs 
us nothing. Yet within the last few weeks high 
naval officers have informed committees of Con- 
gress, who are formulating legislation to meet 
the new demand for national preparedness, that 
without the Philippines two warships would do 
the work of three. In other words, the posses- 
sion of this outpost in Asia requires a naval force 
fifty percent larger than would otherwise be neces- 
sary for adequate national defense. And yet we 
are told that the Philippines cost us nothing. 

Mr. McCall's speech on the Army Bill was 
noteworthy for its thorough examination of the 
experience of other countries in the management of 
colonies. In this he gave an illustration of that 
characteristic of which the Washington "Post" 
said, " The Massachusetts member has a reputa- 
tion for going pretty thoroughly into questions 
on which he undertakes to address the House." 
Mr. McCall appealed to the history of Eng- 
land in Jamaica and in India, to the experience 
15+ 



The Spanish War and its Problems 

of France in Tonkin and Madagascar, and to 
that of Italy in the districts conquered from Ab- 
yssinia, all of which showed that these colonies 
were from a financial standpoint losing ven- 
tures. And there was no reason to hope that the 
Philippines would be any more profitable to the 
United States than the tropical colonies of other 
countries had been to them. 

Mr. McCall also showed that the annexation 
of territories outside the western hemisphere 
greatly weakened our position with reference to 
our one great tradition in foreign policy known 
as the Monroe Doctrine: — 

The assertion of a policy of Asiatic domination will 
bring the Monroe Doctrine tumbling about our cars, 
for we shall make ourselves the laughing-stock of man- 
kind if we say to the overcrowded nations of the other 
hemisphere, " Keep your hands off the empty and un- 
occupied portions of this continent," and then at the same 
time, having a sparse population, embrace a thousand 
islands in the other hemisphere. Such a course would 
deprive the Monroe Doctrine of the last appearance of 
justice, and thenceforward it would have to stand upon 
force alone. 

He also pointed out that the holding of the 
Philippines would add another to the race prob- 
lems with which our country is troubled and which 
seem necessarily to arise whenever men of Anglo- 

155 



Samuel W. McCall 

Saxon blood attempt to rule a people of another 
color. The experience of England in Africa, 
India, and China, as well as our own experience 
in the South and in the Philippines since the date 
of Mr. McCall's speech, amply justify his warn- 
ing. The speech concludes with a fine tribute to 
the spirit in which the Filipinos were endeavor- 
ing to maintain their independence: — 

I have seen this spirit called somewhere, and I think 
admirably called, the " unconquerable spirit." It is the 
spirit that kept George Washington fighting after Valley 
Force. It is the spirit which animates DeWet to-day 
in South Africa after the organization of the republican 
armies has been destroyed and they have been broken up 
into bands of roving patriots. It is the same spirit which, 
according to the reports of our own generals, has broken 
down tribal lines and made the people of the Philippines 
unanimous in their hostility to this nation. It is the 
same spirit which would have shown itself in Cuba had 
we turned our war of deliverence in that country, as 
we did in Asia, into one of conquest. Those who think 
that the Filipinos continue to wage against us the war 
we purchased from Spain because of some speech made 
by somebody against the treaty have read history to 
but little purpose, if, indeed, they have read it at all. 
They are inspired by that same unconquerable spirit 
which is the noblest heritage of the human heart, which 
I am glad to believe is universal ; it is man's best title 
to freedom, and that is the spirit to wage unrelenting 
war in behalf of liberty. 
156 



Thf, Spanish War and its PRdHLEMs 

The Empire of Great Britain never attained a loftier 
moral stature than when, after Majuba Hill, she showed 
herself willing to do justice to the Boers. Standing almost 
peerless in physical strength among the nations, she dis- 
played that nobler and more essential quality of great- 
ness when after a reverse she yet listened to the demands 
of that weak little republic in South Africa. That act 
of Gladstone's strengthened his country in the hearts of 
men the world over; and it will shine in history all the 
more brightlv in contrast with the brutal and merciless 
policy of extermination which is now shocking the sen- 
sibilities of Christendom. But how much easier is it for 
us to-dav to pursue a policy of justice ? We have suffered 
no reverse, or none indeed unless it be a moral one which 
our own conduct has inflicted. The organized armies 
have been dispersed. The Filipino leader, whom we 
bore to Luzon with arms in one of our own ships, has 
been driven by us to the caves of the mountains, if indeed 
he yet lives. The time has come when we should frankly 
declare to those people our ultimate purpose toward 
them. Let us give them that assurance which all our 
historv inspires. Let us tell them that we will aid them 
for one year — for five years if need be — in setting up 
a government of their own, symbolized by their own 
flag, and that we will leave with them all that is most 
glorious in the meaning of another flag — liberty, inde- 
pendence, self-government. 

The annexation of Porto Rico as a result of 
the war with Spain was so obviously fitting and 
so much in accord with the feeling of its inhahit- 

157 



Samuel W. McCall 

ants as to occasion little dissent, but its relation 
to the United States after annexation and the 
constitutional status of its inhabitants provoked 
wide discussion. Mr. McCall took the view, 
which still seems to be in strict accordance with 
every decision of the Supreme Court prior to 
Downes V. Bidwell (1901), 182 U.S. 244, that 
the authority of Congress to legislate for Porto 
Rico and the Philippines was subject to the re- 
straints of the Constitution, and that the inhab- 
itants of the insular possessions were entitled to 
the protection of the guaranties of that instrument. 
Mr. McCall's speech on the Porto Rico tariff, de- 
livered in the House February 22, 1900, was a 
close-knit constitutional arorument and shows 
what eminence he might have attained as a con- 
stitutional advocate had he chosen to devote his 
labors to the bar. Almost a year later ex-President 
Harrison, in what was probably the ablest address 
of his life, announced at the University of Michi- 
gan the same principles of constitutional inter- 
pretation which formed the basis of Mr. McCall's 
speech. '' The man who has to relv upon be- 
nevolence for his laws is a slave," said Har- 
rison. "The Revolution," said Mr. McCall, "was 
started and fought to a successful conclusion 
upon the broad principle that one communitv 
had no right permanently to levy taxes upon 
158 



The Spanish War and its Problems 

another community." And a few months later 
in his discussion of the Army Bill, he said, 
"There is at least one thing in government worse 
than qovcrnmcnt by revolution, and that is gov- 
ernment by brute force. The government of one 
community by another community, of one race 
by another race, contrary to the customs and ideas 
of the governed is something worse than govern- 
ment by revolution." 

Whether or not the United States should levy 
duties upon imports from Porto Rico was not, 
in Mr. McCall's view, simply a matter of consti- 
tutional power. " This is no question of mere 
syntax," he said. While he believed that the 
Constitution gave to Congress no power to dis- 
criminate between different portions of American 
territory, yet, even if it did, such discrimination 
was to his mind contrary to the spirit of American 
liberty. His interpretation of the Constitution 
was rejected by the Supreme Court, but it is in- 
teresting to note that the decision was by a vote 
of five to four, and there was great difference of 
opinion among the majority as to the grounds 
of their judgment. This decision, however, did 
not affect the question of the dutv owed bv the 
United States to the people under its dominion, 
and it may be doubted if this whole debate, which 
was the loftiest in tone which this country has 

159 



Samuel W. McCall 

heard since the abolition of slavery, produced 
anything more eloquent than the concluding por- 
tion of Mr. McCall's speech in opposition to the 
Porto Rico tariff: — 

Remember that if the race from which our institu- 
tions sprang has great virtues it has great faults as well. 
It may not be cruel like the Spanish race; but is it free 
from cupidity ? Do you want an instance from its his- 
tory which may show you whither you are drifting? To 
the west of England there rises from the sea an island 
larger but not more beautiful than Porto Rico — Ireland. 
English statesmen thought their country needed protec- 
tion against her products, and the linen and other great 
industries of Ireland were taxed and legislated almost 
out of existence for the benefit of the taxing country, 
and the people of Ireland were beggared. That system 
has been abandoned, and to-day a British citizen in Ire- 
land has equal rights with a British citizen in any other 
part of the Empire, even in England itself; but genera- 
tions will not obliterate the bitter memories of the op- 
pression and wrong which rankle in the hearts of the 
Irish people. 

Do you want to make Porto Rico our Ireland ? I 
say far wiser will it be if, instead of entering upon 
a policv which will make her happy, sunny-hearted 
children the mere chattels of this Government, we 
follow the humane recommendation of the President 
and lay the foundations of our empire deep in the hearts 
of those people. If you will not regard the question 
from the standpoint of their interests, look at it some- 

i6o 



The Spanish War and its Problems 

what broadly from the standpoint of your own. Our 
injustice will react upon ourselves. [Applause.] 

Our nation was founded and has prospered upon the 
doctrine of constitutional liberty. Do you not see that 
you are degrading that liberty from a high principle.' If 
so, how long can you expect it to survive at home.' We 
restrain our own power when it may be exerted upon 
ourselves. You demand now that it shall be absolute 
and despotic when it may be exerted upon others. If 
restraint is to be removed, it can more safely be dis- 
pensed with when they who wield the power are likely 
to suffer. 

I do not care to see our flag emblazon the principle 
of liberty at home and tyranny abroad. Sir, I brand with 
all my energy this hateful notion, bred somewhere in the 
heathenish recesses of Asia, that one man may exercise 
absolute dominion over another man or one nation over 
another nation. That notion comports very little with 
my idea of American liberty. It was resisted to the last 
extremity by the heroes who fought at Bunker Hill and 
starved at Valley Forge. It fell before the gleaming 
sabers of our troopers at Five Forks and Winchester. 
It was shot to death by our guns at Gettysburg and 
Appomattox. A half-million men gave up their lives 
that their country might stand forth clothed in the re- 
splendent robes of constitutional liberty and that we 
might have a government of laws and not of men for 
every man beneath the shining folds of the flag. All the 
sweet voices of our history plead with us for that great 
cause to-day. And I do not believe, sir, that this nation 
will tolerate any abandonment of that principle which 

ibi 



Samuel W. McCall 

has made her morally, as she is physically, without 
a peer among nations. 

The status of the Philippines and their relation 
to the United States were again before Congress 
in the winter of 1905-06, when a bill providing 
for free trade between the United States and the 
Philippines was introduced. It was perhaps not 
surprising to find that many men, who had been 
most strenuous in their advocacy of the annexa- 
tion of the islands, now opposed the removal of 
tariff barriers against the coming of their prod- 
ucts to the United States, on the ground that 
such a measure would prove destructive to cer- 
tain American industries. To these men JMr. 
McCall said : — 

I think they should manfully recognize that they are 
simply going to pay the price for having indulged in 
some beautiful rhetoric about the flag, — how it should 
never be hauled down, no matter for what purpose it 
had been run up, — and also for the pleasure of stand- 
ing upon the mount of prophecy and seeing dazzling 
visions of an illimitable trade destined never to exist. 
They are paying the penalty to-day for having contrib- 
uted toward making the Philippine Islands American 
territory. 

He taunted those members who constantly 
justified the subjugation of the Philippines by a 
resort to " destiny " and appeals to Providence : — 
162 



The Spanish War and its Problems 

Mv friend from Pennsylvania [Mr. Dal/.cll], who 
is one of the most genuine orators I have ever listened 
to upon this floor, in a burst of piety and eloquence 
yesterday credited the providence of God with the re- 
sponsibility or the glory for our possession of the Phil- 
ippine Archipelago. This observation of my friend 
reminded me of a remark credited to Mr. Henry Labou- 
chere concerning a celebrated British statesman. He 
did not find fault, Mr. Labouchere said, that that states- 
man should now and then be found with an ace up his 
sleeve, but he did object when he claimed that it was 
put there by Divine Providence. [Laughter.] Horace, 
in his "Art of Poetry," has said that you should not 
introduce a deity upon the scene unless there were some 
very hard knot to untie, which it would require a deity 
to do, and it seems to me gentlemen who have defended 
our Philippine policy here have acted strictly within the 
rule laid down by Horace. They have a hard knot to 
untie, and they have frequently introduced Providence 
into this debate. It is a convenient refuge to fly to when 
one is hard pressed for argument. 

Judged simply from an economic standpoint, 
Mr. McCall thought that there should be a duty 
upon Philippine sugar. If American capitalists in- 
troduced modern methods ot sugar production 
into the islands, the American farmer could be 
undersold in the American market. But politi- 
cal and constitutional considerations were more 
mighty than economic arguments. Having com- 
pelled the Filipinos to submit to American rule, 

163 



Samuel W. McCall 

it became the duty of the American Government 
to act the part of a faithful guardian and to do all 
that was possible to promote the interests of its 
ward. " The farmer is paying the penalty," he 
said, " because some of our statesmen at a critical 
time in the history of the nation saw fit to ' think 
imperially.'" Trade relations with the islands 
should have been considered when their annexa- 
tion was under discussion. It was not now an 
open question. 

The policy of free trade was established, to my mind, 
when we annexed the Philippine Islands, and mv action 
was determined for me by others in spite of my oppo- 
sition when annexation was decreed, and I feel con- 
strained to support free trade as a necessary result of 
annexation. It was ordained when we bought from 
Spain the bloodiest foreign war in which this Republic 
ever engaged. I say foreign war, because those people 
never owed us any allegiance whatever, and the war 
was purely one of conquest and subjugation. It was a 
war aptly characterized by the fine line cited by Mr. 
Mead : — 

** Cursed is the war no poet sings." 

Imagine, if you can, an American poet singing and 
the American schoolboy declaiming the most glorious 
exploit of that war, the capture of the Philippine chief- 
tain by American soldiers in Philippine uniforms at the 
very moment when he was extending to them succor 
from impending starvation. 
164 



The Spanish War and its Problems 

When the Payne Bill, which provided practi- 
cally for free trade between the United States 
and the Philippines, was before the House, Mr. 
McCall, while advocating that provision of the 
measure, also urged that Congress should at the 
same time frankly declare its purpose as to the 
ultimate disposition of the Philippines. If Con- 
gress continued to encourage trade with the is- 
lands and the investment of American capital 
therein, the plea would be made that such invest- 
ments were entitled to the permanent protection 
of the American Government. The Filipinos 
themselves foresaw this contingencv, and the 
Filipino Assembly was for that reason opposed 
to the policy of free trade with the United States. 
Mr. McCail said: — 

I have noticed the manner in which this bill has been 
received by the Philippine Assembly. That is no revo- 
lutionary body, but it was set up under our auspices. 
So far as this country is concerned, it cannot be sus- 
pected of having an unfriendly structure. And it is 
most significant of the aspiration of the people of those 
islands that, great as the advantages of this bill are to 
them, their assembly, constituted by us, puts above 
those great material advantages the cause of the inde- 
pendence of their country. Believing that free trade 
with this country will call into being powerful interests 
hostile to their independence, they do not wish to accept 
the gift. 

165 



Samuel W. McCall 

I believe we should heed their wish and couple this 
grant with an unequivocal declaration of our ultimate 
policy which will sanctify every schedule of this bill and 
make it one of the most glorious acts in our history. 
[Applause.] 

There are only three solutions which we can avow. 
We can declare that we propose to hold them perpetu- 
ally as vassals, passing their taxation laws at Washing- 
ington, and conceding them now a little authority and 
now, perhaps, none at all; or that we will admit them 
some day as States into the American Union to take 
part in the common government; or that we will en- 
deavor to fit them for self-government; and when that 
result shall have been accomplished will permit them 
to take their place among the free and independent na- 
tions. To my mind the first and second purposes are 
inadmissible. I have heard no one seriously avow either 
of them. Then why not, at the same time that we are 
granting them this extension of trade and calling new 
interests into being, why not declare that it is our pur- 
pose to fit them for self-government and then to grant 
them their freedom ? [Applause.] Such a policy has 
been, in effect, approved by Mr. Taft before he became 
President and by his two predecessors in office. But 
the treaty of Paris imposes upon Congress the duty of 
fixing the status of the Philippines. Then let Congress 
at this fitting moment frankly declare, after ten years 
of drifting, just what we mean to do with those people. 
Let us make the declaration called for by American 
principles. Let us make it no less in their interests than 
in our own. [Loud applause.] 

i66 



The Spanish War and its Problems 

As this book goes to press, Congress has under 
discussion a bill, supported by both the great par- 
ties, by which the principles of the Declaration of 
Independence are applied to the I'hilippines and 
the policy advocated by Mr. McCall ever since the 
war with Spain would be put into effect. 

It was the condition of Cuba which precipitated 
the war with Spain. Whatever sinister motives 
individuals may have had with reference to that 
conflict, there can be no doubt that the great 
mass of the American people were actuated by 
broad motives of humanity and a sincere de- 
sire to benefit the Cuban people without regard 
to anv direct benefit to ourselves. It may be 
questioned whether any war was ever entered 
upon in a more disinterested spirit. The resolu- 
tion of Congress which precipitated hostilities 
declared that " the people of the island ot Cuba 
arc, and of right ought to be, free and independ- 
ent," and disclaimed any intention on the part 
of the United States to exercise sovereignty, ju- 
risdiction, or control over the said island except 
for the pacification thereof, "and asserts its de- 
termination, when that is accomplished, to leave 
the government and control of the island to its 
people." As the task of restoring order in Cuba 
was approaching completion. Congress enacted 
the Piatt Amendment, by which the acceptance 

167 



v 



Samuel W. McCall 

of certain safeguards for the maintenance of its 
independence was imposed upon the Cuban 
Government as a condition precedent to the 
withdrawal of the American troops. 

But when the authority of Spain had been ex- 
pelled from Cuba and a stable government had 
been established therein, Mr. McCall argued 
that the whole duty of the United States had 
not yet been discharged. By the terms of the 
Piatt Amendment, Cuba's power to make treaties 
with other nations was greatly restricted, and 
Mr. McCall argued from this, as well as from 
other considerations, that Cuba had peculiar 
claims upon the generosity of the United States. 
When a bill establishing reciprocal trade rela- 
tions with Cuba was before the House in 1902, 
it was this aspect of the question which Mr. 
McCall urged as the most important reason for 
its adoption : — 

How does Cuba's case stand in equity compared with 
that of the Philippines ? Cuba is at our doors. She 
guards a great stretch of our coast, the mouth of the 
Mississippi, and the Isthmian Canal. It was her cause 
that stirred the hearts of the American people. She is 
a part of us, not by the harsh fiat of war which, in de- 
fiance of the laws of nature, sets up an artificial and 
unnatural relation with incongruous peoples who live 
under another sky and who are not so far separated 
168 



The Spanish War and its Problems 

from us by the space of half the planet which divides us 
as by those more ineradicable differences in institutions, 
in race, and in civilization, but she is a part of us by 
those common interests which bind peoples toc;cthcr. 

I know it is commonly said that destiny decrees that 
she should some dav become an integral part of the Amer- 
ican Union. Destiny is too often a mere synonym of un- 
hallowed greed. For my part, I prefer to have her go on 
and flourish as an independent republic rather than to 
have her take a part in the Government of the people 
of the United States. Under the protection of this na- 
tion in foreign affairs, with the instability of the races 
which inhabit her, regulated and tempered by people of 
American birth, whom prosperity will attract to her in 
large numbers, I think she can flourish as an independ- 
ent government in a way that will make her the model 
of the other Latin-American States. But if she is ever 
to become a part of us, it is far better that she should 
enter as a prosperous and contented member than 
through the door of starvation. 

If we are to have Porto Rico and Cuba and other 
tropical countries with their incongruous populations 
admitted to participate in the government of the Amer- 
ican commonwealth, we must be prepared for a radical 
change in the character of our institutions. For the 
sake, then, of our own future, as well as for the sake 
of that newborn republic, let us pass this bill. What- 
ever the faults of the Cuban people, we must all admit 
the great patience and serenitv with which thcv have 
acted during the last three years. 

Let us now set them upon their course as a nation 

169 



Samuel W. McCall 

with the help and the encouragement contained in this 
measure. That little republic is the child of this great 
nation, sprung from her loins, and she appeals to our 
highest interests, to our tenderness, to our sense of jus- 
tice, and to that high sentiment that makes men respond to 
the call of duty, and I trust that such an appeal will never 
be made to this Republic in vain. 

Mr. McCall regarded the policy of reciproc- 
ity with Cuba as economically advantageous to 
the United States, and as to Cuba he did not 
exao-CTerate when he said that to that young and 
weak people "it comes as the very bread of life." 
Every consideration of honor impelled us to ex- 
tend to them the help of which they stood so 
much in need. It was this aspect of the ques- 
tion which Mr. McCall emphasized in his speech 
of November 19, 1903: — 

I have, perhaps, said more than is necessar)' concern- 
ing the financial features of this measure in view of the 
clear sentiment of the House upon the bill. I wish to 
say a word about those weightier considerations of a 
high political and moral character that are based not 
upon mere expediency, but that grow out of the de- 
mands of justice. An individual man, strong and rich, 
may not with impunity oppress another who is weak 
and poor, because he is held in terror by the law. But 
what court is there which could enter and enforce a 
decree against the United States in favor of Cuba ? Her 
case therefore calls for the exercise of that higher and 
170 



The Spanish War and its Problems 

more difficult, because merely voluntary, justice which 
a strong nation measures out to a weak one. 

Cuba is not strong enough physically to enforce any 
claim against the United States. She has no army or 
navv. She is just entering upon her career as a na- 
tion. She is absolutely in the hollow of our hands, so 
that whatever we do for her will not be done by us out 
of fear, but will come about by the operation upon our 
will of the abstract principles of justice. Cuba has 
already done something at our dictation. She has sur- 
rendered to us important naval stations upon her south- 
ern coast, and surrendered them at our demand. She 
has also imposed very serious limitations upon her 
power to treat with other nations, and she has done this 
upon our demand. 

We have put Cuba in a position where she can safely 
make no trade compact with any other nation than our- 
selves. We have resting upon us the obligations of a 
mother to a daughter. Her government has been reared 
upon soil soaked by the blood of our soldiers, and it ex- 
ists because of the battles that have been fought by 
Americans upon her territory and upon the seas that 
surround her and on the other side of the world. She 
guards the approach to the isthmian canal and the 
mouth of the Mississippi. Her peace and happiness are 
most important to us. Her prosperity will conduce to 
our repose as well as our renown, and the members oi 
this House have an opportunity to-day to add appre- 
ciably to the glorv and to serve the honor of their 
country by voting for this bill with substantial una- 
nimity. [Loud applause on the Republican side.] 



CHAPTER VI 

THE PRESIDENCY OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGE 

OWEVER busy Mr. McCall's life has 



H 



been and however much his public duties 
have taken him away from New England, noth- 
ing has ever diminished his interest in his alma 
mater. Ever since his graduation from Dart- 
mouth in 1874, he has kept in close touch with 
her affairs, and as his reputation grew he has been 
the recipient of her highest academic honors. He 
has been her chosen spokesman upon such festi- 
val occasions as the centennial of the graduation 
of Daniel Webster. He has been her trusted 
counselor in many a difficult situation. It was but 
natural, therefore, that when the presidency of 
the college became vacant in 1908, the thoughts 
of Dartmouth men turned to Mr. McCall. 

The history of Dartmouth is in many respects 
unique. Founded as a school for Indians and 
isolated in a mountain village remote from any 
considerable city, there was little in her origin or 
environment which promised the development of 
an influential institution of learning. Several cir- 
cumstances, however, combined to make her well 



172 



Presidency of Dartmouth College 

known. Several of her alumni, such as Daniel 
Webster and Rufus Choate, Thaddeus Stevens 
and Salmon P. Chase, kept her much in the public 
eye. She had been the subject also of one of the 
most famous legal controversies ever heard in 
American courts, and Daniel Webster's well- 
known phrase, uttered in the course of his argu- 
ment in her behalf, " It is. Sir, as I have said, a 
small college. And yet, there are those who love 
it," was a part of the rhetorical equipment of 
many an American schoolboy. Like much other 
rhetoric, however, it was misleading. The truth 
is that even when Webster made the statement, 
Dartmouth, as compared with her contempo- 
raries, was not a small college. While her situa- 
tion was in some respects unfavorable to rapid 
growth, she was for many years the only college 
in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. In the 
eighteenth centur}- those sections of New Eng- 
land were rapidly settled with a population of 
character and enterprise and ability, and the 
sons of these pioneers flocked to Dartmouth in 
considerable numbers. It is true that measured 
by the standards of the present day, when our 
great universities number their students by thou- 
sands, the Dartmouth of Webster's day would 
fittingly be described as a small college. But when 
we remember that from 1790 to about 1850 the 

173 



Samuel W. McCall 

institution of which Webster spoke was in point 
of attendance sometimes second and much ot the 
time third among /American institutions of learn- 
ing, it can be seen how misleading his statement 
was. History, however, is too prosaic to compete 
with the genius of the orator. " Eagle wings " are 
not only the means by which, as Juvenal says, 
"immortal scandals fly," but they bear anything 
which can be compacted into a convincing phrase. 
The Dartmouth of Webster's day will continue to 
be thought of as a small college. Mr. McCall has 
finely said in his oration on Webster: — 

Whatever may have been its relative rank, the one 
thing most certainly known about it now is that it was 
a small college. The pathetic statement of Webster in 
the argument of its cause at the bar of the Supreme 
Court has settled that fact for all time. It is true that 
it was a day of small things, but the smallness of con- 
temporary objects was not immortalized by the touch 
of genius, which has it in its power to endow with per- 
petual life any passing condition or mood in the life of 
a man or an institution. Fifty generations have grown old 
and died since the Greek artist carved his marble urn, but 
the maiden and her lover chiseled there are still young, 
and to the immortality conferred by art has been added 
the immortality of poetry in the noble verse of Keats : — 
'• Forever wilt thou love and she be fair." 

Even the most cursory account of Dartmouth 
should mention her noteworthy record in the 

17+ 



Presidency of Dartmouth College 

Civil War. In 1861 she had only 2753 living 
alumni, many of whom were too old for military 
service. Yet from this small band and from the 
undergraduates then in attendance she contrib- 
uted 652 men to the armies that fought for the 
Union, — a larger proportion of her sons than 
was contributed by any other college in the 
North. 

When President Tucker became the head of 
Dartmouth in 1893, she was still a typical old 
New England college, doing excellent work upon 
ancient lines, but not much concerned with new 
and progressive ideas in education. The expan- 
sion in every field so characteristic of the univer- 
sities situated near great cities had not vet pene- 
trated to the country college. It is due chiefly 
to President Tucker that Dartmouth is no longer 
apologetically described as a small college. But 
even more marked than its extraordinary growth 
in attendance has been its growth in all those 
things which indicate a great scholastic center. 
Removed though she is from the large cities, 
she has nevertheless attracted scholars to her 
faculty, books to her library, and apparatus to 
her laboratories in such goodly measure that the 
little academy established in the mountains bv 
a missionary clergyman as a center of light to 
Indians has become an institution of the first 

175 



Samuel W. McCall 

importance in the educational life of the entire 
country. 

When the health of President Tucker com- 
pelled him to resign, leading members of the 
board of trustees urged Mr. McCall to allow 
them to present his name to the board as Presi- 
dent Tucker's successor. This suggestion, which 
was never made public, came to Mr. McCall as 
a great surprise. He said while he was deliberat- 
ing upon it that it was entirely different from any- 
thing that he had ever thought of for himself. He 
was strongly tempted to accept it. It was another 
opportunity to serve his alma mater and such op- 
portunities always appealed to him. It was also in 
line with his scholarly tastes. It would bring him 
into contact with the life of youth with which he 
feels so stronglv in sympathy. Ultimately, how- 
ever, he urged his friends among the trustees to 
turn elsewhere for a president and to give him 
no further consideration. But the feeling of the 
board that he was the proper successor to Presi- 
dent Tucker was shared by the college faculty 
and by the alumni of the college throughout the 
country. A few months later, therefore, the ques- 
tion was again brought up, with much insistence. 
Through an accident the desire of the trustees 
became known and there was then a general public 
discussion. Dartmouth men everywhere began to 
176 



Presidfncv of Dartmouth College 

urge Mr. McCall to accept. Forty-three mem- 
bers of the Dartmouth faculty united in address- 
ing to him the following letter: — 

\Vc, the undersigned members of the faculty of Dart- 
mouth College, having learned that you have under con- 
sideration the presidency of this institution, take this 
opportunity of expressing to you our sincere hope that 
you may accept the tender made you. While we recog- 
nize the many sacrifices which would be entailed by 
leaving your present field of civic usefulness, we feel that 
we are not going beyond the limits of propriety in urg- 
ing you to accept the position upon the grounds of public 
duties and of devotion to the interests of this institution. 
In the confident belief that under your guidance Dart- 
mouth College will not only hold its present enviable 
position, but will extend its influence nationally, we 
pledge you our cordial support and cooperation. 

This collective letter from the faculty was sup- 
ported by individual letters from many of its 
members. President Tucker, who was in hearty 
sympathy with the action of the trustees, wrote: 

I cannot refrain from saving, in a personal way, how 
much I feel that the future of the college depends upon 
your decision. Of course institutions live, even under 
adverse conditions, but the difference between living 
under ordinary' and under unusual conditions of a favor- 
able sort is very great. J can think of nothing which 
would put so much heart and enthusiasm into Dart- 
mouth men all over the country, or give to the college 

177 



Samuel W. McCall 

such an assured position for the coming years, as your 
acceptance of the presidency. 

Probably no communication from the faculty 
gave Mr. McCall greater satisfaction than this 
from one of his former teachers : — 

I shall esteem it a pleasure to work under one whom 
I remember so satisfactorily as a student and of whom I 
have known so honorably as a public man. From the 
side of the faculty I therefore add my urgency to that 
of the trustees. 

The alumni, of course, manifested the greatest 
interest in the election, and from every side came 
urgent requests that he should accept the posi- 
tion. One of the most noted religious leaders of 
the country wrote : — 

I want to tell you, as an old Dartmouth contemporary, 
how for many reasons it would please me should you 
accept the position. ... I feel sure that under your 
administration, Dartmouth would hold on to all that is 
best in the past, and would not forget its noble moral 
and religious traditions, or its great founder who was 
such a noted evangelist as well as educator. 

A letter which preserves much of the tang of 
college camaraderie is the following : — 

My dear Sam : — 

I want to say to you that all the Dartmouth gang 
who have been acti\e in her affairs in the last fifteen 
years, with whom I have talked, hope you can see your 
178 



Presidency of Dartmouth College 

way clear to accept the presidency of Dartmouth C(j1- 
lege. To be sure, this gang is getting older than it used 
to be, as you and I both realize, but 1 believe the senti- 
ment among the younger crowd that is coming on to 
take our places is just the same, and I believe that vou 
will have as loyal alumni back of you as Tucker has 
always had since his accession to the presidency. We 
shall all feel greatly relieved and delighted to hear that 
you have concluded to accept. 

Another alumnus who had served in Congress 
said in urging his acceptance : — 

I regard the position of the head of Dartmouth as far 
more important and more useful than that of a Congress- 
man. I appreciate, however, that I do not have that 
exalted view of the position of Congressman that I en- 
tertained before I went to Washington. 

Interest in Mr. IMcCail's decision was bv no 
means confined to the immediate Dartmouth 
circle. One of the most eminent citizens of Bos- 
ton, the Honorable Richard Olney, himself an 
alumnus ot Brown, wrote thus: — 

Unless you arc going to be President of the United 
States, I trust you will see your way to become presi- 
dent of the college of which Daniel VV^ebster and Rufus 
Choate were graduates. ... I have, of course, no ad- 
vice to give upon the subject, the matter being so pecu- 
liarlv of a personal nature. Hut I am sure that you would 
fill the chair of the president entiitK full to the great 

179 



Samuel W. McCall 

benefit of Dartmouth and with a success which would 
enhance even the large reputation you now enjoy. 

A letter of peculiar interest came from Major 
Henry L. Higginson : — 

Dear Mr. AfcCall: — 

In any event you have done your work like a high- 
minded man and public servant and we are very grateful 
to you. Dartmouth is doing an excellent part in our 
country, and has had a noble president. If it really gets 
you, it will be in luck — and you will have a dignified 
and interesting task so long as you wish. I know that 
the matter is not settled — and I am sorry to miss 
you from Washington and glad to see you — at peace. 
Education ! It is our great need. Pray don't reply, 
but tie up your words in peace, and be ready to come 
home. 

Most of Mr. McCall's correspondents as- 
sumed that his acceptance of thepresidency would 
involve his permanent retirement from political 
life, but suggestions were not wanting that by be- 
coming a resident of Hanover he made himself 
eligible to election to the United States Senate 
from the State of New Hampshire, and the pros- 
pect of such an event was held out as a definite 
reason for his acceding to the invitation from 
Dartmouth. 

No one questioned Mr. McCall's eminent fit- 
ness for the presidency, but many of his friends 
1 80 



Presidency of Dartmouth College 

urged that it was Iiis paramount duty to retain 
his place in Congress. Numerous letters from his 
constituents indicated their desire that he should 
continue to represent them. An organization of 
colored men in Boston expressed much concern 
because of his prospective retirement. " We are 
in doubt," they wrote, "as to how well we will 
fare during the coming administration, and view 
with alarm the prospect of losing so good and 
influential a friend as you in Congress." 

A distinguished historian, James Ford Rhodes, 
wrote, as spokesman for a group of well-known 
men : — 

Dear McCall : — 

On last Tuesday at the Wintcrsnight Club dinner, 
dining with Dr. J. C. Warren on Beacon Street, the 
question came up about the offer of Dartmouth Col- 
lege to you, and the opinion was generally expressed 
that, while you would make an excellent president of a 
college, we should all regret your acceptance of the flat- 
tering offer; because you were peculiarlv situated to ex- 
ercise a salutary influence in the House, and, having a 
sure district and devoted constituency, it would be a 
misfortune for the State and nation for you to forsake 
them tor a position which you would bring more to than 
it could give to vou. You have made a good record, 
have a standing and acquaintance that is valuable for the 
country; and they must be agreeable to yourself. Tal- 
ent like yours should not be buried at Hanover when it 

i8i 



Samuel W. McCall 

may be exercised in the larger field of Massachusetts 
and on the theater of Washington. 

There were eight of us dining ; J. C. Warren, James 
Crafts, Judge Grant, Moorfield Storey, James Storrow, 
Charles Sargent, Edmund Wheelwright, and mvself. 
As I understand it the sentiment was unanimous and I 
was asked to report the same to you. 

One of the foremost lawyers in the United 
States, the Honorable Moorfield Storey, put 
the case thus: — 

I hope you will not accept the presidency of Dart- 
mouth College. You have won for yourself a position of 
very great influence and power in the nation, and all 
your experience tends to make your influence in the 
future greater. The problems that we are called upon 
to deal with in the near future are such as require the 
very best men we can get, and there is no one who can 
step into your place if you leave it. Any one, whatever 
his ability, would have to demonstrate it to the country, 
would have to spend years in showing what he was ca- 
pable of before he could acquire such a power for good 
as you now have. 

The New York "Sun" commented on the 
subject in this wise: — 

During this now closing seven or eight vears' war 
upon the Constitution, the courts, property, and common 
sense, Mr. McCall has kept his head. He must have 
been pretty lonely a good deal of the time. If calmer 
days are hoped for, still the public mind, the new ad- 
182 



Presidency of Dartmouth College 

ministration, the Congress must long feci the effects of 
the debauch of violent personal government which the 
country has undergone. The clear intellect and courage 
of Mr. McCall cannot well be spared from Washing- 
ton ; and it is to the honor of his congressional district, 
the " Harvard College district," that in spite of con- 
tinual hopes and efforts of cheap little Republican poli- 
ticians, he can be reelected as long as he pleases. If 
the college of Webster and Choate is fortunate enough 
to lure from Washington to Hanover this worthy per- 
pctuator of its best traditions, Dartmouth gets a singu- 
larly able man of atfairs and the House of Representa- 
tives loses its most intellectual and engaging figure. 

After a full consideration of the factors in- 
volved, Mr. McCall finally decided to remain in 
Congress. The reasons which actuated him are 
fullv set forth in the following communication 
to the Dartmouth Trustees: — 

Washington, D.C, Feb. 22, 1909. 

Gin. Frank S. Streeter^ Chairman of Committer of Trustees 
of Dartmouth College., Concord., N.H. 
My Dear Gen. Streeter : W^hile I expressed to you 
my impression when you first mentioned to me the sub- 
ject of the presidency of the college, yet its very great 
importance, the impressive manner in which it was pre- 
sented, and the widespread interest in the decision, as 
shown in the many letters I have received from gradu- 
ates of the college and from others imposed upon me 
the duty of giving the matter my most serious thought. 

183 



Samuel W. McCall 

That duty I have made a sincere effort to perform, and, 
whether right or wrong, I have reached a conclusion. 

If I had never been at all connected with the college, 
I must yet have been stirred at the suggestion you have 
made me. There could be no greater distinction than to 
be thought of to lead one of the great intellectual armies 
of the country, to be associated with so noble a past 
and with such a splendid present in which the old and 
new are so richly blended. But I had long known the 
wonderful charm of Hanover, so beautifully seated 
among the hills and so completely dominated by the 
college spirit as to make it, one might fairly say, the 
most characteristic college town in America. No one 
could be more sensible than myself of both the attract- 
iveness and the distinction of the proposal, the value of 
which was enhanced by the fact that I had been thought 
of by a board of trustees who personally knew me and 
containing among its members two of my classmates 
with whom I had been bound by ties of intimacy since 
we were boys together at Hanover. 

The chief work of my life has been only in the most 
general way related to education. One's habits of thought 
tend to become fixed and more or less adapted to the 
pursuit he is engaged in, and he should hesitate before 
transplanting himself to a new field. The difference in 
the work I have been doing and that you propose may 
not really be one of kind, and I should not wish upon 
that point to set my opinion against your own and that 
of President Tucker, who is a master in his calling and 
is giving an administration in brilliancy conspicuous in 
the history of colleges. And to decide upon that ground, 

184 



Presidency of Dartmouth College 

too, would be merely to take the view of caution and 
conservatism, something scarcely to be thought of when 
there is an influence more positive operating upon my 
mind. 

The work which I am trying to do was not entered 
upon by accident, and if I have not pursued it with suc- 
cess it at least is not because my vows were lightly 
taken. And since I did not lightly take it up, I cannot, 
in what I believe to be a very grave crisis, drop it easily 
and shift to something else. I may be accomplishing 
little of value, but I happen to be on the battle-line, 
and I should, indeed, be a sorry soldier nicely to weigh 
causes and to decide at this moment to step out of the 
ranks. This is not the place for political discourse, but 
perhaps I should say to you that the crisis I referred to 
is in my opinion full of peril to our institutions, and 
how soon the movement is to begin toward sanity and 
safety I do not know. I am far less concerned by par- 
ticular theories than by general methods of government 
— methods which have been carrying us swiftly toward 
a condition under which limitation upon governmental 
power would be done awav with, and the favoritism and 
caprice of an autocrat would take the place of consti- 
tutional restraint. And some chance barbarian as an auto- 
crat might overturn our temples and do more harm in 
the direction of uncivilizing the country than all our 
colleges together could possibly repair. 

It may be that I have an exaggerated notion of the 
relative importance of my present work, but if so, the 
teachings I received at "the college on the hill" must 
bear a part of the responsibility. Her traditions are vital 

185 



Samuel W. McCall 

and throbbing with inspiration to public service. I need 
only mention to you the supreme causes of constitutional 
government and the preservation of the Union. With 
both of those causes her name is imperishably identified. 

I have decided, therefore, to continue in the service 
of the most tolerant and generous of all constituencies, 
which has just honored me by a reelection to Congress, 
and accordingly, I ask that you do not consider my 
name when the time comes to choose a president. 

In conclusion, let me sav that I should deem myself 
a quite unworthy son of Dartmouth to deny her any- 
thing that would help her and that she might fairly ask; 
but I cannot but think my decision the wiser one, even 
for her. She has sons highly fitted for her service, skilled 
in administration, with a special training and scholar- 
ship to which I can lay no claim, and under some one 
of them she will continue to grow and prosper. Planted 
even before the nation was born, she has been through 
every crisis of our history, has had her own special stress 
of storm and has emerged from every trial more lovely 
and more strong, until to-dav she is confronted with no 
grave problems, unless with such as prosperity often 
imposes. Those problems, whatever they may be, will 
trouble her but little when she comes to face them, as she 
surely will, her heart filled with the great memories of her 
past and her fair eyes looking hopefully upon the future. 
Sincerely yours, 

S. W. McCall. 

Mr. McCall's decision and particularly the 
terms in which it was announced evoked a chorus 
186 



Presidency of Dartmouth College 

of approval. One of the most honored of his 
constituents, Colonel Thomas Wentworth Hig- 
ginson, wrote: — 

Allow one of the oldest in years and one of the most 
cordial of your supporters to thank you for keeping " in 
the battle-line." My Wentworth alliance would have 
justly given me associations with Dartmouth, so that I 
can look at that side also. 

A resident of another congressional district in 
Massachusetts expressed his satisfaction in these 
words : — 

If it is permitted a graduate of Brown and a voter in 
the eleventh Congressional District to express any opin- 
ion as to matters relating to Dartmouth and the eighth 
Congressional District, allow me to thank you for your 
declination of the Dartmouth presidency. I am very 
glad, indeed, that you are to continue in Congress and 
your decision will be gratifying to many of us Demo- 
crats. Some of your party colleagues might consider 
this a doubtful compliment, but I trust you will not find 
it offensive. 

Interest in Mr. McCall's decision was not con- 
fined to this country. From Toronto, one of the 
most eminent of British scholars and publicists, 
Goldwin Smith, wrote: — 

It is with real delight that I see you have decided in 
favour of Washington against Dartmouth. With all 
due respect to Dartmouth, there be nothing to be done 
there at all comparable in importance to the removal 

187 



Samuel W. McCall 

of the barriers of trade between the two sections of this 
continent, bringing as that measure will social and po- 
litical advantages in its train. 

The following letter from one of his constitu- 
ents well summarizes the whole correspondence: 

Your letter to the Dartmouth Trustees causes much 
rejoicing in this bailiwick. The Eighth District has 
realized for a long time that it was represented by the 
sanest man in either house, and it is glad to know that 
it is not to be deprived of that distinction. The coun- 
try at large is to be congratulated on your decision. It 
is a much easier matter for Dartmouth to find a satis- 
factory president than it would be for the country to find 
another man who would stand for the things that you 
stand for in Congress. I am glad, however, that the 
presidency was oftered you, not only because it was a 
compliment which was richly deserved, but also because 
of the noble reply which it called forth. Your letter to 
the trustees was one of the most uplifting documents 
which any public man in our history has sent out, and 
I am sure the country will recognize it as such and that 
your influence on public affairs will be correspondingly 
increased. 

These are but a few extracts from the letters, 
more than two hundred in number, which carne 
to Mr. McCall from all parts of the country, and 
which are convincing evidence of the widespread 
interest in his decision and of the place which he 
occupied in American public life. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE MAN 01" LETTERS 

AMI^RICAN public life has often been unfa- 
vorably contrasted with that of other coun- 
tries, particularly Great Britain, because it has at- 
tracted so few men of eminence in letters and 
science. It is true that the roll of the British Par- 
liament contains many names which confer luster 
on the oldest of legislatures because of attainments 
outside the field of politics. Lord Bryce and Lord 
Morley, Lord Curzon and Lord Rosebery, Ar- 
thur Balfour, Augustine Birrell, and Sir Gilbert 
Parker are examples of a class of men who have 
lonfT been conspicuous in British public life. But 
in America similar examples, if not so numerous, 
have not been altogether lacking. The beginnings 
of our existence as a nation are indelibly associ- 
ated with Benjamin Franklin, who was not only 
our leadin£T man of letters in his day, but is one 
of the chief figures in the history of science. Since 
his time, Bancroft and Irving, Motley and White, 
Lowell and Hav have all been members of our 
diplomatic service. But a few years ago, with 
Mr. Roosevelt in the Presidency, Mr. Hay in 

189 



Samuel W. McCall 

the State Department, Mr. Lodge in the Senate, 
and Mr. McCall in the House, we had a group 
in our public councils which in point of literary 
achievement could well be compared with any 
similar group in the public service of any other 
country. Had Mr. McCall not given his life to 
statesmanship, he would undoubtedly have de- 
voted it to letters. While the public life of the 
country has been enriched by his career, Ameri- 
can literature has been deprived of a great histo- 
rian and essayist. To a considerable extent, to 
be sure, he has combined literature and politics, 
but it is obvious that the time and energy which 
his public duties consumed made impossible those 
literary productions which it would otherwise have 
been reasonable to expect from him. For such 
contributions he is rarely equipped. His wide 
acquaintance with the masterpieces of Greek and 
Roman and English literature, his sound schol- 
arship, his grace of expression, and his gift of 
imagination constitute a combination of qualities 
which admirably fit him for a high place in 
American letters. 

As civilization in the United States has moved 
westward and as new States have developed, the 
epoch of transition from frontier conditions to 
communities of a more settled and complex type 
has been marked in several instances by the 
190 



The Man of Letters 

appearance of names which hold places of dis- 
tinction in the literature of the country. Their 
nearness to nature and the simplicity of their 
surroundings may have assisted in the develop- 
ment of a sympathy with the primitive and an 
understanding of the human spirit which might 
not have tared so well in the older and more 
sophisticated communities. At any rate, it was 
in surroundings of this sort that were spent the 
formative years of such writers as William Dean 
Howells and Whitelaw Reid in Ohio, Edward 
Eggleston in Indiana, John Hay in Illinois, Mark 
Twain in Missouri, and Bret Harte and Joaquin 
Miller in California, And it was in a region that 
was just passing out of the frontier stage that 
Mr. McCall spent his boyhood, and the strong 
human sympathies, as well as the feeling for 
liberty and the varying moods of nature which 
characterizes much of what he has spoken and 
written, may be due in part to the impressions 
of those earlv vears in northwestern Illinois. 

Mr. McCall is the author of two important 
biographies, which are included in the American 
Statesmen Series. They deal with two men who, 
in their personal characteristics, had much in 
common. In their masterful personalities, their 
caustic wit, their independence, and their readi- 
ness to adopt radical measures for the attainment 

191 



Samuel W. McCall 

of what seemed to them justifiable ends, and 
in the strong antagonism which they aroused, 
Thaddeus Stevens and Thomas B. Reed were 
not unHke. But Mr. McCall approached the 
two from totally different points of view. He 
was but a boy of seventeen when Stevens died. 
The closest point of contact between them lay in 
the fact that Mr. McCall in 1870 entered the 
college from which Stevens had been graduated 
in 1 8 14. There was much in Stevens's radical- 
ism with which Mr. McCall had no sympathy, 
and much in his personality that was repugnant 
to him. He could write of him in a spirit of 
critical detachment which was impossible in his 
biography of Reed. The great Speaker was his 
close friend. They had served together in Con- 
gress. They thought alike upon most public 
questions. They held some opinions for which a 
large section of their party wished to ostracize 
them, and they were alike in the tenacious inde- 
pendence with which they supported their con- 
victions. Mr. McCall's life of Stevens was, 
therefore, a study of the career of a man who, 
whatever one's opinion of him may be, was the 
dominant force in this country in one of the 
crises of our history; but his life of Reed was 
a labor of love. 

Perhaps the most prominent characteristic of 
192 



The Man of Letters 

Mr. McCall's life of Stevens is its judicial tone. 
Its restrained language is in marked contrast 
with the tempestuous character and stormy period 
of which it treats. His ultimate judgment of 
Stevens and of the great principles which guided 
him are thus set forth in the concluding sentences 
of the book : — 

A truer democrat never breathed. Equality was the 
animating principle of his life. He deemed no man so 
poor or friendless as to be beneath the equal protection 
of the laws, and none so powerful as to rise above their 
sway. Privilege never had a more powerful nor a more 
consistent foe. 

Nowhere is Mr. McCall's analysis of a situa- 
tion and balancing of the factors which enter into 
it better exemplified than in his comment on 
Lincoln's policy of emancipation : — 

Emancipation was, above even union itself, the great 
contribution which the war made to the progress of 
mankind ; but it was only the wisest statesmanship that 
so shaped and directed the varying issues of the war 
that freedom was secured and the Union saved. In a 
great institution like slavery, as it existed, hrmly in- 
trenched by law over a great portion of the country, 
there is so much that quicklv becomes vested, so much, 
too, that is sure to be interwoven into the fabric of so- 
ciety, that nothing short of a great national convulsion 
can remove it. It was not difficult for those who were 
not financially interested in it, and who looked upon it 

193 



Samuel W. McCall 

from a safe distance, to become impressed with a sense 
of its wickedness. But how to do away with it was a 
problem for the profoundest statesmanship. The most 
casual survey of the course of slavery to its extinction 
will convince one both of the danger of agitation and 
of the danger of compromise, when each of them is 
taken alone, but of the potency of each in finally set- 
ting in motion the resultant force which brought forth 
freedom. Very many patriotic people were found who 
were willing to make the best of the evil in order to be 
at peace, or who would at the most employ palliatives 
and trust to time to do the work of regeneration. Others 
desired to resort to methods which were excessively 
heroic, and would have killed the patient in order to 
destroy the disease. The progress and the very exist- 
ence of society lay in the fact that neither of these ex- 
treme views could have its way, but that, as a result 
of antagonistic, or certainly not concurrent, forces a 
middle and safer pathway was pursued. Whether slav- 
ery could, within any reasonable period, have been 
blotted out, except through war, is a question which 
is even now debated ; but there can be little doubt that, 
after war had been entered upon, the rational and con- 
servative course was taken, and instead of sacrificing 
the Union by a premature attempt at freedom, or de- 
laying freedom until the Union was lost, the time and 
the methods were chosen which made freedom more 
certain, and made it also an instrumentality for preserv- 
ing the Union. It was fortunate that men like Stevens 
foresaw the ultimate result and prepared the minds of 
men to receive it. It was fortunate that Lincoln appa- 

194 



The Man of Lf-tters 

rcntlv ciriftctl with puhlic opinion and waited until the 
moment was ripe. The immortal event was finally 
consummated, not by one side or extreme of humanity, 
but as a result of the combined wisdom of all. 

To do exact justice to a friend is a most diffi- 
cult task. Warmth of atfection may result in 
over-much laudation, unless, on the other hand, 
excess of caution leads to the withholding of 
merited praise. In writing his life of Reed, Mr. 
McCall met this dilemma by allowing Reed as 
far as possible to tell his own story. Mr. McCall 
has been heard to say that he regarded Reed as 
the ablest man that he had met in public life. 
His retirement from Congress when apparently 
at the zenith of his power is thus narrated: — 

In the summer of 1898 Reed stood for election to 
the House for the twelfth time, and received the great 
majority that he had become accustomed to receive 
during the last half-dozen elections at which he was a 
candidate. But the difference between him and the ad- 
ministration became more serious, as the result of an 
issue which the war had brought forward. The war 
with Spain had proved a most unequal contest, because 
of the vast difference between the resources of the two 
nations. In the treaty of peace we purchased the Philip- 
pines and thereby purchased a war which proved much 
more deadly than that which the treaty had brought to 
an end. . . . Reed profoundly disbelieved in the exist- 
ence of a colonial theory of our Constitution, or in 

195 



Samuel W. McCall 

making an application of such a theory to the Philip- 
pines by taking on the "last colonial curse of Spain." 
When therefore the islands had been acquired from 
Spain by treaty made by the President with the advice 
and consent of the Senate, and war had been entered 
upon for the purpose of subjugating their inhabitants to 
our control, he determined to retire from public life. 
He said to his trusted friend and secretary, Asher C. 
Hinds, "I have tried, perhaps not always successfully, 
to make the acts of my public life accord with my con- 
science, and I cannot now do this thing." 

When Reed resigned, he had just been re- 
elected to the House and was assured of reelec- 
tion to the speakership — an office of which he 
said that it had but one superior and no peer. 
And it was not unreasonable for him to look 
forward to election to the Presidency. Surely 
few men have ever made a more costly sacrifice 
to conscience. 

Mr. McCall is not only the biographer of 
Reed, but he also pronounced the oration at the 
unveiling of his statue in the city of Portland in 
1 9 1 o. As a work of literature it deserves to rank 
with his centennial oration on Daniel Webster. 
There is room here for but one of its many 
beautiful passages: — 

Beyond his brilliancy as a debater, his resplendent 
wit, and his skill as a parliamentary leader, his title to 
remembrance rests upon his quality as a statesman. 
196 



The Man of Lfttfrs 

He had a great ambition, but it was not great enough 
to lead him to surrender any principle of government 
which he deemed vital. Like Webster, like Clay, and 
others of our most conspicuous statesmen, he was dis- 
appointed at not reaching the Presidency, but he could 
fitly aspire to the office, for he was of the fiber and 
nurture out of which great Presidents are made. He 
probably would not have been a continuously popular 
President, but our great Presidents never have been. 
He had that supreme quality which was seen in Wash- 
ington breasting the popular anti-British feeling and 
asserting against France our diplomatic independence; 
in Lincoln bearing the burden of unsuccessful battles and 
holding back the sentiment for emancipation until the 
time was ripe for freedom; in Grant facing the popular 
clamor and vetoing inflation ; and in Cleveland alienat- 
ing his party while he persisted in as righteous and 
heroic a battle as was ever waged by a President. 

Undoubtedly Mr. McCall's most important 
publication is his book on " The Business of 
Congress." This consists of a series of lectures 
delivered at Columbia University in the winter 
of 1908-09. To its preparation he brought an 
unusual equipment. Obviously such a book could 
be written only by one who had seen years of 
service in Congress. But in addition to his ex- 
perience in the House, he was possessed of a 
wide knowledge of the history of parliamentary 
institutions in the two countries in which they 

197 



Samuel W. McCall 

have been most fully developed, and a keen ap- 
preciation of the political principles on which 
representative government rests. The result is a 
book, which is a real contribution to the science 
of politics. The first chapter contains a note- 
worthy argument on the use of the treaty-making 
power for purposes of legislation. In other chap- 
ters he recurs to the theme on which he has fre- 
quently spoken and written — the proper rela- 
tion between the two branches of Congress and 
between Congress and the Executive. There is 
an illuminating exposition of the functions of the 
Speaker in the transaction of the business of the 
House wherein he shows that much of his power 
is derived from the fact that in becoming Speaker 
he does not lose his membership in the House, but 
retains all the rights possessed by other members. 
The last chapter of the book, which bears the 
caption "Results," is an impressive account of 
the outcome of representative institutions as seen 
in the working of the Government at Washing- 
ton. It may be doubted whether any more 
thoughtful and weighty comment upon certain 
tendencies in American government has ever 
been written. 

Mr. McCall has been the orator on many fes- 
tival or commemorative occasions when fitness 
required scholarship and a gift of literary expres- 
198 



The Man of Letters 

slon. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and 
various chapters ot that organization have turned 
to him for the annual address which is a fixed in- 
stitution in the activities of that learned society. 
In 1904, when he delivered the oration before 
the Harvard Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, he chose 
as his theme " The Newspaper Press." Few men 
in public life could have treated it so adequately, 
for he brought to it not only the results of his 
observation ot the press as a factor in the forma- 
tion of that public opinion upon which the action 
of a great democracy is based, but also his expe- 
rience as the editor in chief of an important daily 
newspaper. The address is so closely knit that 
it inevitably suffers from condensation, but the 
following passages will convey some conception 
of its thought and form: — 

Sydtu'v Smith said that reputation is one of the prizes 
for which men contend, and therefore that praise should 
should not be given unless justly due. Praise should not 
be bestowed grudgingly when deserved, but it violates 
the inherent sense of justice to confer the palm not 
upon the swift runner but upon the laggard. I fancy 
no one would accuse our press as a whole with dis- 
crimination or even an attempt at a just holding of 
the scales. Gross exaggeration as a daily mental diet 
helps to engender a condition of mind in the American 
people which is only satisfied by the constant employ- 
ment of superlatives — a condition which finds its con- 

199 



Samuel W. McCall 

summate flowering-out in our national conventions, 
where to the incredible laudation of words is added a 
noisy powwow, running thirty minutes by the clock, 
from which nothing is lacking but enthusiasm and paint 
to make it a reproduction of the war-dance of the sav- 
age. Our newspapers alternate between violent eulogy 
and violent abuse. You may read the contemporary his- 
tories of the golden age of American eloquence or of 
the time when Gladstone, Peel, Disraeli, and Palmer- 
ston were contending for supremacy in the British Par- 
liament, and you will find, if not always measured and 
temperate statement, at least the lineaments of the great 
actors retaining the appearance of real humanity. But 
livint'- in an era of the headline and the limelight, news- 
papers speak of our war ministers often in terms that 
could not justly be applied to Stanton and Carnot ; we 
have secretaries who eclipse Adams and Webster; and 
statesmen, who in former times were developed by a 
long discipline and training in their calling, now spring 
full-armed from the head of the appointing power. They 
will paint the war bantam as the eagle and drive the eagle 
from the sky. Charges of criminality will be leveled at 
large numbers of men in the mass and, by way of com- 
pensation, other men will be exalted to the heavens. 
Abuse, however, greatly predominates over commenda- 
tion, especially in the treatment of agencies of govern- 
ment. To illustrate: There maybe instances in recent 
years when a State Legislature has been spoken of by 
the newspapers in any other terms than of derision and 
contempt, but if so the instances are rare indeed. If the 
press is justified in the matter, one of two conclusions 

200 



The Man of Letters 

follows, cither that the American people arc not far from 
being a corrupt people, or that they usually elect their 
worst men to public office. There has been a reversal 
of conditions since the first appearance of newspapers. 
Then the Government persecuted the press and now 
the press is apt to persecute the Government. Criticism, 
of course, only attains its object when it is discrimi- 
nating and just. Unrestrained, furious, and unjust at- 
tack can in no sense be called criticism, but it is de- 
structive of its ends. Since the public must see public 
officers chiefly through the press, it is necessary that 
it should be vigilant, sparing no wrongdoing wherever 
it may exist, but it is as necessary, too, that it should be 
just. Unsparing denunciation, particularly of represen- 
tative bodies, has become a seated habit. The people 
come to recognize this habit of mind and are less in- 
fluenced by it. Indeed, on more than one important 
occasion, when the press was united in support of a 
good political cause, it has gone down to defeat largely 
because the weight of its opinion had been impaired by 
its own intemperance. 

But the real danger after all probably lies in the oppo- 
site direction. The press is more apt to combine with 
the Government, especially if it be a Government of 
the blessed paternalistic kind. Newspapers already are 
a species of monopoly. They are increasingly hard to set 
on foot. That fact is the prime cause of yellow jour- 
nalism. Great sums of money legitimately expended 
are hardly adequate to establish a newspaper, and it be- 
comes necessarv in addition to employ the arts of the 
showman, the art of the pander, and to appeal to the 

201 



Samuel W. McCall 

side of human nature most easily reached, which is the 
side of passion. With the present economic tendency 
continuing, the time is not far distant when it will be 
nearly as difficult to create a new newspaper as to cre- 
ate a new coal-mine. The great news centers are com- 
paratively few, and so are the important newspapers. 
Combinations have already been made for the purpose 
of collecting news — combinations perfectly natural and 
highly beneficial to the public because they have tended 
to do away with the competition to tell the largest story, 
and they furnish us to-day with the greater part of the 
real news. The general tendency to combination, al- 
ready at work in the newspaper field, will not need to 
proceed far before we shall have, if not a common own- 
ership of newspapers, at least a "gentleman's agree- 
ment" or the "community of interest" plan, and we 
shall have our news "barons" as well as our steel and 
coal "barons." Great capitalists do not fancy agitation. 
They prefer to have things go along as they are. Being 
on the box-seat, they are willing to let well enough alone. 
And so there is a likelihood that there may be a new sort 
of partnership with the Government, not the kind of a 
partnership which existed until lately in Germany when 
policemen acted as editors-in-chief, putting the finish- 
ing touches upon editorials, and harmonizing everything 
with the Government's wishes, but a partnership of 
real interest where rich newspaper owners and the indi- 
viduals controlling the Government will desire to " stand 
pat" and keep what they have. Then we should have 
the really strong newspapers smugly proclaiming to the 
multitude the freedom so full of blessings to themselves, 

202 



The Man of Letters 

and the struggling, short-lived newspaper, wildly crying 
out tor liberty, and smearing on the yellow in order to 
gain a living support. I imagine none of us, if we were 
there, would fancy either of these sorts of newspaper, 
but as between the sleek, thoroughly commercialized 
champion of privilege, trying to lead public opinion in 
the direction of its own interests, baffling justice in her 
eternal struggle to give one measure to all men, and 
the miserable starving yellow sheet, protesting against 
a system of government for the benefit of the few, I 
trust we should be with the yellow starveling. 

At Tufts College in 1903 he again appeared 
as the Phi Beta Kappa orator, and spoke on 
the subject " The Scholar in Politics a Conserva- 
tive," — an address which he later repeated in 
substance at the Louisiana State University. He 
deprecated the idea that education comes only 
from the schools, or that educated men consti- 
tute a separate class. But it was with the duty 
of educated men toward the public that he was 
concerned, and he argued that it was incumbent 
upon them particularly to preserve what had been 
won in the way of ordered liberty. 

In despotic governments, which cherish the privileges 
of the few rather than the good of the many, the real 
scholar is usually radical. If he is honest he will likely 
incur ostracism or banishment in proclaiming the evils 
which he perceives. But in a democratic government, 
where there is substantial equality of political rights 

203 



Samuel W. McCall 

and where the State may be embarked upon perilous 
enterprises with little knowledge, I think the highest 
function of the scholar is to be conservative. He will 
preserve the liberty which exists by preventing hazard- 
ous and doubtful experiments, and by preventing the 
excesses which are the common cause for superseding a 
democratic government by government of a more ex- 
clusive character. The American Constitution is not 
exactly what Macaulay characterized it, "all sail and 
no anchor," but it so readilv permits motion that a con- 
servative force becomes vitally important. 

The spirit of the ideal citizen under a government 
like ours will be what Stevenson calls the *' hope-starred, 
full-blooded spirit," at once aggressive and sane, which 
shows its exuberance rather in preserving and building 
up than in smashing the existing order. Assuming that 
our system of government is the justest yet discovered, 
that better than any other it gives to each individual the 
opportunity of self-development, this spirit will occupy 
itself in preserving our democracy from the peculiar evils 
to which democracy is liable, and, for the sake of pre- 
serving it, will batter down the palpable abuses which 
threaten the system. Do not imagine that an easy task. 
It will require almost the ferocity of spirit of rare Ben 
Jonson when he said : — 

** With an armed and resolved hand, 
I Ml strip the ragged follies of my time. 
Naked as at their birth. And with a whip of steel. 
Print wounding lashes in their iron ribs. 
I fear no mood, stampt in a private brow. 
When I am pleased t* unmask a public vice." 

204 



The Man of Letters 

It was of this address that William James 
wrote : — 

It seems to mc, both for form and matter, to belong 
to the very best type of oratory embodying political 
thought. Its wisdom is as deep as its epigrams are sharp ; 
it is a memorable utterance, and I hope it may become 
classical. 

How admirably Mr. McCall would have ful- 
filled the functions of historian had he chosen to 
devote himself to the interpretation of the past 
appears from his comment on John Brow'n's 
raid which forms part of his memorial address 
on Colonel ThomasWentworth Higginson: — 

While Higginson was not disposed to shirk one 
particle of responsibility, it is clear that he did not 
understand the exact nature of the raid beforehand, as 
it was actuallv put into execution, and the same is 
doubtless true of most, if not all, of the other people in 
Massachusetts who were interested with him. So far as 
I have been able to learn, Higginson supposed that 
Brown intended to establish an underground railway, 
such as he had operated in Missouri, and that it was his 
object to free individual slaves, to conceal them in the 
Alleghany Mountains, and if necessary to defend their 
freedom. When it came time for Brown to put his 
plan into execution, with a remarkable aberration of 
judgment, he openlv began war upon the National Gov- 
ernment bv capturing the arsenal at Harper's Ferry. 
Frederick Douglass attempted in vain to dissuade him 

205 



Samuel W. McCall 

from the plan and give him sensible advice. The attack 
on the arsenal Douglass declared was an attack on the 
Federal Government and would array the whole coun- 
try against him ; it " was a perfect steel trap," Doug- 
lass said, and once within it, he would never be able to 
get out alive. The enterprise as Brown developed it 
was entirely impossible of success and resulted in the de- 
struction of many lives, the first \ictim being an inno- 
cent free negro. Mr. Villard in his "Life" of Brown, 
in which he shows a remarkable desire to chronicle the 
exact facts, leaves little room for doubt, upon the ma- 
terial he has collected, as to the cause of Brown's ex- 
traordinary action. Mr. John M. Forbes, at whose house 
Brown once visited, spoke of the look of insanitv in his 
"glittering gray-blue eyes." Brown's own personal his- 
tory and that of his family would have made perfect the 
defense of insanity, if any additional evidence were 
needed to that which the character of the raid itself af- 
forded. He certainly did not ha\e the kind of responsi- 
bility that should have sent him to the scaffold. The un- 
doubted effect of the raid was to produce a genuine 
alarm in the South. It is not so clear that it strength- 
ened abolitionism in the North. At any rate, this much 
is true — that in the critical winter of 1860-6 1 the 
cause of abolitionism seemed to have less strength than it 
had ever had after it had become an established agitation. 
The most abhorrent compromises with slavery, such 
as had never been dreamed of bv the Whigs, were 
passed through both Houses of Congress by the votes 
of the Republican members. As to one of the important 
counts in the indictment against Webster, his accept- 

206 



The Man of Lkttf.rs 

ance in the Compromise of 1850 of the proposition 
that certain Territories should be permitted to decide 
for themselves whether they would have slavery when 
they should be admitted to the Union — that was 
one of the mildest of the compromises offered and 
voted for by Republicans in Congress in the winter 
of i860. Freedom was indeed brought about by a rev- 
olution, but it was not a revolution inaugurated by the 
enemies of slavery but by its friends. The force that 
won freedom was the force of law. We can all admire 
Brown's fervent zeal for freedom, but it would be very 
dangerous to sanction the methods which he employed. 
Slavery was a terrible thing, but in the opinion of men 
living to-day there are many other terrible things in so- 
ciety. Often real wrongs find shelter for a time under 
any system of government, as well as fancied wrongs, 
and often men whose minds dwell upon a single evil 
will come to think of it as the sum of all evil. Men 
have a laudable way of devising political inventions 
for making society better, if not perfect. These are 
somewhat like the inventions in the Patent Office, 
a very large proportion of which are ingenious but not 
practical, and it often happens that the less of real value 
a political or mechanical invention has the more it is 
believed to have bv the man who possesses it or who is 
possessed by it. Some of these inventors are likely to 
take the law into their own hands, and, if they cannot 
do so peaceablv, to employ violent methods to establish 
their reform. The true method of providing remedies 
under a government like ours is by a resolute and law- 
ful agitation such as Garrison employed. Any other 

207 



Samuel W. McCall 

principle than that would make violence the agency of 
reform, dynamite and the dagger would take the place of 
discussion, and government by law would cease to exist. 

The most recent of his books is the series of 
lectures delivered at Yale University in 191 5 
and published under the title " The Liberty 
of Citizenship." The Dodge Lectureship at Yale 
has been held by many eminent men, among 
whom were President Taft, Lord Bryce, Justice 
Brewer, Justice Hughes, Secretary Root, Bishop 
Potter, President Hadley, and Governor Bald- 
win. This was a lofty succession, and when Mr. 
McCall undertook the duties of the lectureship 
he recurred to the theme which more than any 
other runs through the whole of his public career. 
He embodied in these lectures much that he 
had said on the same subject on other occasions, 
but the fundamental importance of the theme 
justifies the repetition. He feels that one of the 
greatest dangers which threaten American life 
to-day is the constant curtailment of individual 
freedom by unwise governmental restraint. 

Those who confuse libertv with democracy are prone 
to decide that whatever fetters democracy mav fasten 
upon man, he still remains free. But freedom to man 
in society consists in his right to use his faculties and 
to profit by their use, subject to the equal right of other 
men to do likewise, and it is the important function of 
208 



The Man of Lktters 

the State to restrain only such exercise of his faculties 
by man as may injure others. With this qualiHcation 
freedom should be safeguarded, not merely because it 
is a right of the indi\iiiual man, but because its enjoy- 
ment by developing enterprise has been the great agency 
in pushing forward civilization. And men should be per- 
mitted to build up their characters in the only way in 
which strong and robust characters can be built, not in 
the stifling hothouse of governmental restraint, but in 
the free and open fields played upon by the sunshine 
and beaten by winds and storms. 

Dartmouth is perhaps the only American 
college which has felt justified in celebrating the 
centennial of the graduation of one of its alumni. 
The place of Daniel Webster in American his- 
tory, his supereminent qualities as an orator, and 
his peculiar services to his alma mater made such 
a celebration as appropriate as it was unique. 
Of the other figures in American public life 
who were worthy of such a distinction, Wash- 
ington and Franklin and Lincoln were not col- 
lege men, and Hamilton's course at Columbia 
was abandoned at the outbreak of the Revolu- 
tion. The invitation to Mr. McCall to deliver 
the commemorative oration was one of the most 
gratifying distinctions of his life. Webster had 
been one of the heroes of his bovhood, and his 
niaturer years had found a solid basis for his 
youthful judgment. The address which he pre- 

209 



Samuel W. McCall 

pared was therefore much more than a formal 
tribute to an eminent public man. There was a 
warmth of personal feeling in it which sets it 
apart from the usual commemorative oration. 

One of its most beautiful passages pictures 
the orator : — 

The transcendently great orator, who has kindled 
his own time and nation to action, and who also speaks 
to foreign nations and to distant ages, must divide with 
great poets the affectionate homage of mankind. While 
the stirring history of the Greek people and its noble 
literature shall continue to have charm and interest for 
men, the wonderfully chiseled periods of Demosthenes 
and the simple yet lofty speech of Pericles will be no 
less immortal than the odes of Pindar or the tragedies 
of Sophocles or i^schylus. The light that glows upon 
the pages of Virgil shines with no brighter radiance than 
that seen in those glorious speeches with which Cicero 
moved that imperial race that dominated the world. 
The glowing oratory of Edmund Burke will live until 
sensibility to beauty and the generous love of liberty 
shall die. And I believe the words of Webster, nobly 
voicing the possibilities of a mighty nation as yet only 
dimly conscious of its destin\', will continue to roll on 
the cars of men while the nation he helped to fashion 
shall endure, or indeed while government founded upon 
popular freedom shall remain an instrument of civiliza- 
tion. 

In 1913 Mr. McCall again paid tribute to the 
hero of his boyhood when he delivered the chief 
210 



The Man of Letters 

address at the dedication of Webster's birthplace 
at Franklin, New Hampshire. In his concluding 
sentences he spoke with marked tenderness of 
Webster's character, and in a spirit of charity and 
justice and comprehensive recognition of his 
service in developing a sentiment of nationality, 
he weighed his faults against his great virtues : — 

His faults were those of a great and lavish nature. If 
he sometimes forgot to pay his debts he often forgot to 
demand his own due. They said he was reckless in ex- 
pense. But instead of squandering his substance at the 
gambling table according to the common vice among 
the statesmen of his day, his extravagance consisted in 
the generous entertainment of friends, in choice herds 
of cattle and in the dissipation shown in cultivated fields. 
If he put Story under tribute to serve him upon public 
questions, he himself would neglect the Senate and the 
courts and for nights and days watch by the bedside of 
a sick boy. His faults did not touch the integrity of his 
public character and were such as link him to our hu- 
manity. If he had been impeccable, incapable to err, 
with no trace about him of our human clay, a Titan in 
strength but with no touch of weakness, we should be 
dedicating to-day the birthplace, not of a man but of a 
god. A superb flower of our race, he was still a man 
and he is nearer to us because he was a man. Product 
of this soil and these mountain winds, of this sky, the 
sunshine of the summer and of the winter snows, the 
hardships of the frontier, the swift-moving currents of 
his country's life, the myriad accidents that envelop us 

21 1 



Samuel W. McCall 

all, we reverently receive the gift and thank God to-day 
for Daniel Webster as he was. We who meet here may 
speak for the millions of our countrymen when we do 
this homage to his memory. We reverence the great 
lawyer, the peerless orator and the brilliant literary genius. 
But most of all we honor the memory of the statesman 
who kindled the spirit of nationality so that it burned 
into a flame, who broke through the strong bonds of 
sectionalism and taught men to regard their greater coun- 
try, and whose splendid service in making his country 
what she is and what she may hope to be has won for 
this son of New Hampshire a lasting and a priceless fame. 

The American people have been strangely 
neglectful of the fame of Alexander Hamilton. 
Whether because he was overshadowed by Wash- 
ington; whether because he never came to the 
Presidency nor occupied a seat in either house 
of Congress; or whether because of the brevity 
of his life, the fact remains that it is only in com- 
paratively recent years that he has been acknowl- 
edged as the most creative of our statesmen and 
the most brilliant intellect that ever appeared in 
American politics. Mr. McCall's address advo- 
cating the erection of a monument to Hamilton 
in the National Capital, while comparatively 
brief, is marked by incisive analysis and a clear 
comprehension of the functions of a statesman, 
l^articularly happy is the perception of Hamil- 
ton's relation to Washington: — 

212 



The Man of Letters 

In one respect no statesman was ever more fortu- 
nate than Hamilton. Probably he would have produced 
his financial and economic policies without the aid of 
Washington, but he never would have been able to put 
them into effect. Washington was the greatest man of 
his time. He has been surpassed by many other men in 
some single element of greatness. But there was never 
in any other man such a blending of great qualities, 
each in its due and exact proportions, and he had a 
regular and balanced genius that makes him unique 
among all figures of history. In the most trying times 
of peace and war he had revealed himself to his coun- 
trymen and they knew him as he was. Thus he had a 
dci^ree of authority among masses of the people which 
was probably never attained by any other statesman. 
The policies of Hamilton were carried by the magic 
of Washington's name, and those policies were so out 
of touch with the ideas and passions of the times that 
even the influence of Washington was none too great. 
Washington knew Hamilton as only he could know 
one who, during long years of war, had held the most 
confidential place upon his staff. He knew Hamilton's 
strength and weakness. He knew how to direct and 
restrain him. His marvelous good sense could provide 
the needed touch to make the difference between suc- 
cess and failure. There were no two great men of his- 
tory whose careers were more intimately blended. What 
a fortunate thing their union was for America. When 
we regard the one we are sure to think of the other. 
We look upon the grandeur of Washington's fame with 
the awe and reverence which a near approach to per- 

213 



Samuel W. McCall 

fection inspires. We do not find in Hamilton that bal- 
anced greatness. But he had creative qualities in which 
he stands peerless among our statesmen. He survives 
to-day in the very structure and fiber of the Nation and 
of its Government. And his countrymen even yet feel 
the light and heat of his splendid genius. 

At the dedication of a statue to General Wil- 
liam F. Draper, distinguished for many inven- 
tions in connection with the development of the 
textile art, Mr. McCall said as to the place of 
invention in the long journey of mankind: — 

Every faculty of man has been incredibly magnified 
by invention. He has been, as it were, created anew 
with superlatively greater powers. The distance between 
the naked human fist and the modern battleship as im- 
plements of warfare measures no greater progress than 
has been shown in those less destructive arts that min- 
ister to the well-being and comfort of man. The same 
contrast is seen between the unclad savage, feeding pre- 
cariously upon the free fruits of the earth, wandering 
through his lifetime over the hills and fields where he 
was born, seeking shelter in caves and coping with the 
appalling difficulties about him with his unaided human 
strength, and the man of to-day, housed and clothed in 
comfort and luxury, his table spread with food from 
every clime, the pressure of whose finger may fill with 
light a great city, who may ride like Ariel " on the 
curl'd clouds," and whose very whisper may be heard 
a hundred leagues. As one of the results of invention, 
the wants of the human animal arc multiplied by the 
214 



The Man of Letters 

increased means of ministering to them, and man is 
made a vastly more complex, if not a better, being. 
Increased wants become necessities, and it may be that 
the struggle for existence, although with little of the 
hardship, is not less strenuous than in the primitive 
times. But undoubtedly the world is thus made a much 
greater, more complex and more interesting world to 
live in. . . . 

It is of the very essence of civilization, therefore, to 
tempt man to conquer the unknown, to extend the 
boundaries of human knowledge and to widen the sway 
of the race, so that, if it may, it shall encompass the 
very stars. 

When the mine yields such rich ore, the temp- 
tation to make further drafts upon it is great. 
Throughout Mr. McCall's speeches and writings 
are compact phrases which carry an argument in 
themselves. It is in one of his committee reports 
that the famous sentence " Freedom follows the 
flag " first made its appearance. " The little breed 
of noisy politicians who defame their own virtue 
by always vaunting it " vividly depicts a phase of 
human nature which is not confined to politicians. 
In a sober discussion of the tariff, he said : — 

The payment of dividends upon issues of water and 
even of atmosphere has never yet been avowed to be 
one of the objects of protection. 

The same paper is enlivened by these observa- 
tions: — 

215 



Samuel W. McCall 

The gentlemen who manage the Steel Trust do not 
take more than they can get; but they display the usual 
amount of human moderation, and get what they can. 
Being patriots, they could not be so treasonable and so 
untrue to the demands of good citizenship as to refuse 
what the law forced upon them. 

Humor and imagination are happily combined 
in this picture : — 

What is the central idea of citizenship ? I have a 
notion that it is one of relation to others. No one can be 
a citizen all by himself. Robinson Crusoe may have been 
a sovereign, but a citizen he could not be. The conflicts 
between labor and capital that rent his little state were 
only such as swept across his own breast. Most envied 
of mortals, he could placidly monopolize any part of the 
trade and commerce upon his island without fear of be- 
ing proceeded against under any Sherman Anti-Trust 
Law. He could follow his ancient habit of taking nine 
hours' sleep each night and not be stigmatized as a re- 
actionary. Happy old citizen of the universe, hero of 
so many generations of youngsters of all ages, you and 
your mythical island have become objects of admiration 
and envy to old boys as well as young whose elbow 
room in this world is being painfully hedged in. 

In sharp contrast with this is this picture which 
suggests the solemnity of a Greek tragedy : — 

The baleful Goddess of Detraction sits ever at the 
elbow of f'ame unswectening what is written upon the 
record. 



CHAPTER VIII 

MR. MCCALL 

THE opinions of a statesman upon the pub- 
lic questions of his day and the measures 
which he has originated or supported are all an 
essential part of the record, but they tell little of 
the human personality which lies behind and of 
the man's intimate relations with his fellow men. 
Hence, the account of Mr. McCall's life as a 
public man should be supplemented by some 
impression of him as he appears in his family 
circle and among his friends. 

The independence of mind which Mr. McCall 
has displayed by refusing on numerous occasions 
to follow his party has led to his being described 
as an insurgent — a term of such belligerent 
suggestion as to convey the impression of an 
antagonistic or pucrnacious disposition. Nothing 
could be farther from the truth. He finds no 
satisfaction in disagreeing with men whom he 
admires and esteems. So far as in him lies he 
would be glad to live at peace with all men, but 
he is not willing to purchase peace by the sacri- 
fice of his convictions. He does not welcome 

217 



Samuel W. McCall 

differences, and when he finds himself in disagree- 
ment with those about him it is not his habit to 
give expression to his own opinion unless he 
feels that the occasion demands it. Even his 
family have sometimes been surprised to find, 
when they came to carry out a plan which had 
been discussed in his presence and from which 
he did not dissent, that all the while he had been 
silently disapproving. When he does express dis- 
sent, he avoids personal criticism. In debating 
public measures he addresses his discussion to 
the measure in hand and not to the men who 
may be opposed to his views. It is rarely that 
anything in the nature of a personality can be 
found in his speeches. 

Mr. McCall's books and speeches supply 
abundant evidence of his scholarly tastes. As a 
student he received unusually thorough instruc- 
tion in the classics, but unlike most college 
graduates he has taken pains to preserve and to 
extend his knowledge in that field. This is 
due partly to his fondness for the masterpieces 
of Greek and Roman literature and partly to 
his sense of the value of classical studies as a 
means of intellectual discipline. On his last trip 
to Europe he availed himself of the leisure af- 
forded by the voyage to read the " Odyssey," 
and recent visitors to his ofiice in the State 
218 



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MRS. SAMUtL \V. McCALL 



Mr. McCall 

House in Boston could have seen a copy of it 
lying on his desk. His intimacy with Greek 
literature appeared in his farewell address to the 
House, the concluding words of which were 
a quotation from Euripides. As a young man 
he was fond of the novels of Bjornson, and he 
is still devoted to Thackeray — particularly to 
" Pendennis," but he cares little for current fic- 
tion. His favorite reading is history and poetry, 
and in both these fields his knowledge is wide and 
exact. If one were to single out his favorite authors 
they would probably be Burke and Macaulay 
among prose writers, and Homer and Virgil, 
Shakespeare and Milton among the poets. His 
memory is well stored with striking passages 
which he has so well digested that he uses them 
in a debate or conversation as naturally and fitly 
as though he were their author. It could not be 
said of him as he said of Charles Sumner: — 

He read more than he assimilated. Whatever he read 
he did not digest and make his own, hut simply trans- 
ferred it from the book to his head, and when occa- 
sion called for its use it would come forth unatlected 
by its residence there. 

Closelv akin to Mr. McCall's appreciation of 
the masterpieces of literature is his sense of the 
ennobling influence of art upon life and of the 
contribution which beauty can make to the de- 

219 



Samuel W. McCall 

velopment of the human spirit. When it was 
proposed in Congress that the national memorial 
to Lincoln should take the form of a Greek 
temple, the objection was made that such a 
structure would serve no useful purpose. To 
this Mr. McCall replied: — 

I am entirely willing to rest under the scorn of gen- 
tlemen who think that we should put everything in life 
upon the basis of efficiency. I know there are men 
who would think it a mere waste of time to carve an 
Apollo or a Venus, when the same amount of labor 
might rear a hovel to shelter some human head; or who 
would regard the work of a painter, spending weary 
months of his life in putting immortal tints upon can- 
vas, as a mere waste of time, when he might devote his 
energies to painting many buildings and preserving them 
against the weather. But I have myself no sympathy 
with this view. I not only do not regard it as waste to 
encourage those pursuits which aim to cultivate and 
satisfy our sense of beauty, but I believe they make an 
appeal which makes life richer and better for all of us. 
The notion of mere efficiency would cover this world 
of ours with concrete structures, built with the most 
nicely calculated strains, and would fill them up with 
human automatons, each devoted to his own narrow 
specialty, perhaps of making a boot-heel, and chased by 
fast-flying machinery all through the day. We might 
produce more under such a system, but the individual 
would be shrunk. It would make us a race of dwarfs, 
and our ores and coal, I believe, might better be per- 

220 



Mr. McCall 

mittcd to remain in the earth's untouched bosom. I 
would not have our country, when the final reckoning 
is to be made between her and other nations, have 
nothing to present hut an abnormally developed effi- 
ciency, and have that put beside the painting, the sculp- 
ture, the literature, the music, the architecture, and 
those other consummate flowers of civilization which 
other nations would bring. I do not underestimate a 
highly developed industrial system, if only there should 
be the more developed also those higher and more ar- 
tistic expressions of the aspirations of our race, which 
should be the choicest possession of every one of its 
children. 

It was also said by way of objection that how- 
ever beautiful a Greek temple might be in itself 
it was inappropriate as a memorial to Lincoln. In 
his reply to this contention Mr. McCall paid trib- 
ute to the surpassing artistic genius of the an- 
cient Greeks and showed how their architectural 
forms might fittingly be used to commemorate 
the character of Lincoln: — 

In whatever relates to artistic expression, whether in 
poetry, in eloquence, in sculpture, or in architecture, who 
is there in the world who can surpass the Greek? What 
more speaking marbles were ever carved than those of 
Phidias? What strains of poetry have ever broken with 
sweeter music on the human ear than those of Homer 
and of Pindar? Where else has eloquence reached the 
chiseled beauty of Demosthenes? And although but 

221 



Samuel W. McCall 

few remnants of the architecture of the Greeks have 
survived the hand of the barbarian and the tooth of time, 
yet when we come in view of some fragments ot them 
to-day, broken though they may be, and twenty cen- 
turies after their time, we stand before them enthralled 
in wonder. There is nothing more beautiful in archi- 
tecture than the column of the Greek. ... It illus- 
trates dignity, beauty, simplicity, and strength. How- 
ever the soul of Abraham Lincoln might have been 
chiseled in its shaping, as he came finally to be, every 
one of those elements was represented in his char- 
acter. 

Mr. McCall is an idealist in the sense that he 
has ideals and seeks to attain them. But he is not 
so visionary as to refuse to make any advance at 
all simply because he cannot advance as far as he 
would like. Lloyd George once declared that the 
chief part of the activitv of every statesman con- 
sists in the arranging of compromises. In politics 
compromise is the price which must always be paid 
for any substantial achievement, and so long as the 
achievement is in harmony with justifiable prin- 
ciples compromise is legitimate and praiseworthy. 
But Mr. McCall has given abundant proof of his 
willingness to follow his convictions no matter at 
what consequence to himself. When he voted 
against the resolution which precipitated the war 
with Spain, he believed that his action would cost 
him his seat in Congress, and when he reached 

222 



Mr. McCall 

home that night after the adjournment of the 
House he said to Mrs. McCall, " 1 have cut otf 
mv political head to-night." 

It is one of the fortunate circumstances of Mr. 
McCall's life that in the impressionable years of 
his boyhood and youth he lived in two widely 
differing sections of the country, and thus acquired 
two points of view. Such an experience could not 
but tend to save him from a provinciality of which 
he might otherwise have been a victim, and it 
partlv accounts for his ability to look at impor- 
tant questions from the standpoint of the country 
as a whole. It is natural, therefore, to find that he 
deprecates sectionalism. In 1S93 he said in the 
House : — 

An attempt has been made in this debate to draw 
what is called the " color line, "and to stir up a sectional 
feeling. So far as my constituency or the Commonwealth 
of Massachusetts is concerned, I can say emphatically 
that there is nothing hut the best of feeling towards the 
South. Our scholars study her history ; they are sorry 
at her mistakes, while they regard her great deeds with 
pride as a part of the history of the same imperial race 
to which they belong. Her merchants and capitalists 
would find in the great natural wealth of the South an 
opportunity for that increase which Nature has denied 
them at their less favored home. They would be glad to 
witness the offspring of the happy union between the 
surplus wealth of one section and the abundant natural 

223 



Samuel W. McCall 

resources of the other. Not less grateful to their eves 
than to yours would be the spectacle of new temples of 
industry lifting their spires to the Southern sky, of your 
wonderful mineral wealth being unbarred to the sun- 
light of your fair slopes, " rich in crops and rich in 
heroes." 

The one principle which more than any other 
has shaped Mr. McCall's public career is his de- 
votion to liberty, — but not to liberty as a thing 
which the powers that be may grant or take awav as 
they deem it expedient, but to liberty as a birth- 
right equally sacred with life. The unrestrained 
freedom of his boyhood on the prairies of Illinois 
may have had something to do with hisimpatience 
with the multiplicity of statutes which threaten 
our liberty, and this impatience has found a more 
solid basis in his study of history and in his ob- 
servation of the dwarfing effect produced upon 
individual character by an excess of govermental 
regulation. 

As the youthful editor of a college paper he 
protested against the prevailing excess of legisla- 
tion, and forty-two years later he returned to this 
theme, and with great amplification of detail he 
made it the subject of the Dodge lectures delivered 
at Yale University under the title "The Liberty 
of Citizenship," the central thought of which 
was expressed in this sentence : — 
224 



Mr. McCall 

Let us regard it as one of the first duties of citizen- 
ship to aid in checking the rapidity and greed with which 
the laws are coming to devour liberty. 

In thus emphasizing the idea of iibertv, Mr. 
McCall has in mind the concrete and personal 
liberty of the individual rather than the nebu- 
lous liberty of the group to which the individual 
belongs. It is only by protecting the individual 
that the group can be protected. A free com- 
munity in which the individual is not free is a 
contradiction in terms. The Roman conception 
of the relation of the individual to the state, so 
antagonistic to the history of freedom among men 
of English speech, receives no support from Mr. 
McCall. 

When I speak of the indi\ idual, I mean the chief 
thing that is essential in the meaning of the term " the 
people." I do not accept the latter term in the sense 
in which it is so often sweetly used by those who de- 
sire our votes. I am unable to see how any good, com- 
ing to a mass of men, can be felt in any other way than 
by the individuals in the mass. And until somebody 
shall point out a higher consciousness than that of the 
individual man or woman or child, he can hardlv be 
heard to denv that the individual man or woman or 
child is the ultimate concern of the state. . . . 

The notion that there is a collective personality called 
''the people," separated from the individuals who com- 
pose it, and which may be used to oppress each one and 



Samuel W. McCall 

all of its component parts in turn, may well have been 
a conception of the Greek demagogues by whom it was 
so fittingly illustrated in practice. I cannot understand 
how there can be any freedom that is not in the last 
analysis individual freedom. However great a mass of 
men you may have in a nation, however powerful phys- 
ically it may be, if each individual is the victim of op- 
pression, if he is denied rights, if there is no forum open 
to him, where he can be heard to say against the majority, 
"this is mine" — then "the people" have no such 
thing as liberty, they have no such thing as popular 
rights. As to the " composite citizen," he obviously is 
nobody who ever has existed, or ever will exist. When 
the advocates of a reform, ignoring the man of flesh and 
blood in the street, are conducting it with reference to 
this mythical person, they should emigrate to Utopia. 

Mr. McCall's life and thought are so perme- 
ated with the Idea of liberty as a right inherent 
in every man as to make it inevitable that his re- 
lations with others should be characterized by 
great tolerance. Years ago Phillips Brooks an- 
swered the charge that tolerance in religion was 
only another name for indifference by showing 
that real tolerance can proceed onlv from convic- 
tion. Herein lies the explanation of Mr. McCall's 
tolerance of opinions and courses of action which 
are most repugnant to him. It proceeds from his 
recognition of liberty as a supreme human right. 
So sincere is his recognition of the right of every 
226 



Mr. McCall 

man to be himself, so long as he does not interfere 
with a like right in others, that he instinctively 
puts all men upon an equal plane and approaches 
them without any assumption of superiority. And 
this is the basis of his democracy. To him de- 
mocracy does not appear as a political theory 
based upon expediency, but as a right inherent 
in mankind. " The simple majesty of manhood" 
is a phrase which occurs in many of his speeches. 
One who regards manhood as majestic cannot be 
other than a firm believer in both liberty and 
democracy. 

Somewhere Mr. McCall refers to Lincoln as 
an illustration of the " chivalry of democracy." 
This phrase goes far to explain Mr. McCall's 
political philosophy as well as his conception of 
the dignity of humanity. That democracy can be 
chivalrous will seem to many to be a contradiction 
in terms, while others, in spite of the present-day 
exaltation of Lincoln, will find it difficult to as*- 
sociate him with the mediasval knight whose lofty 
vows of devotion to 

Truthc and honour, freedom and curtesie 

did not involve any idea of obligation to those 
who were not of gentle blood. Chivalry and de- 
mocracv, however, have this much in common, 
— that they cherish ideals the mere profession of 

227 



Samuel W. McCall 

which is an incentive to their attainment, and 
those ideals look to the protection of the weak 
and the restraint of the strong and the establish- 
ment of righteousness in the relations of men 
with one another. Both chivalrv and democracy, 
in so far as they are a social philosophy, repre- 
sent conceptions of service, — the former through 
the dedication of an individual to the protection 
of a class, the latter through the organized effort 
of the community to protect and cherish each of 
its members, and to open wide to all every door 
of opportunity. Mr. McCall's phrase was there- 
fore not only a graceful tribute to Lincoln, but 
was a compact statement of the principle which 
justifies democracy, and which his own life so well 
exemplifies. At the beginning of his legislative 
career he was identified with such chivalrous and 
humanitarian measures as the abolition of impris- 
onment for debt, the protection of the wages of 
sailors, and the preservation of the purity of the 
ballot through the regulation of the use of money 
in elections. Later, as a member of Congress, he 
was actuated by the same chivalrous and human- 
itarian motives in proposing an amendment to 
the Federal Constitution authorizing Congress to 
regulate hours of labor, particularly of women 
and children, throughout the United States. And 
now, as Governor of Massachusetts, he is en- 
228 



Mr. McCall 

gaged in the same chivalrous enterprise in his 
endeavor to obtain a revision of the constitution 
of the State, the protection of the poor against 
the exactions of loan sharks, and the limitation 
of the hours of labor in industries which are 
operated continuously. 

Where snobbery is, there can be no true de- 
mocracy. Men's position in the world will neces- 
sarily be helped or hindered by the environment 
into which they are born, but the worth of their 
achievements is not to be gauged by such an 
accident. Allusion has already been made to the 
fact that in Mr. McCall's first campaign for Con- 
gress his opponents made much of the circum- 
stance that their candidate was a son of the great 
War Governor of Massachusetts, John A. An- 
drew. Mr. McCall reminded them that Gov- 
ernor Andrew came to Boston from Maine, a 
poor bov who had to fight his way without the 
help of family prestige, and that those who now 
sought to win votes for his son because of the 
achievements of the father represented the same 
social element against which Governor Andrew 
himself had to win his way. To advocate a man's 
election to office because his father had held adis- 
tins:uished place was to revert, in Mr. McCall's 
judgment, to the very system which our ancestors 
came to this country to escape. Such an appli- 

229 



Samuel W. McCall 

cation of heredity was repugnant to his idea of 
democracy. 

A citizen of Boston prepared a " Literary His- 
tory of America " in which he carefully recorded 
that Theodore Parker and William Lloyd Garri- 
son " sprang from that lower class of New Eng- 
land which never intimately understood its social 
superiors "; that Benjamin Franklin " sprang from 
socially inconspicuous origin " ; that " the lower 
class of New England produced Whittier " ; that 
Thoreau's blood was " not of the socially distin- 
guished kind"; that Irving "was of simple ori- 
gin" and that "his family was in respectable 
trade " ; and that Daniel Webster was the " son 
of a New Hampshire countryman" and "re- 
tained so many traces of his far from eminent 
New Hampshire origin" as to be less typical of 
the Boston orators than were some other men. 
As to this reproach against Webster Mr. iVlcCall 
said : — 

It is hardly useful to turn to a doubtful past in order 
to learn of a known present, or to judge of a son whom 
we know well from a father of whom we know little. 
It it often more safe to judge of the ancestor from the 
descendant than of the descendant from the ancestor. 
I supposed that Daniel Webster had forever settled the 
essential character of the stock from which he sprang, 
just as the pure gold of Lincoln's character unerringly 
230 



Mr. McCall 

points to a mine of unalloyed metal somewhere, if there 
is anything in the principles of heredity; and whether 
the mine is known or unknown, its gold will pass cur- 
rent even at the Boston mint. 

His democracy has been expressed in his atti- 
tude toward legislation which discriminated be- 
tween men before the law because of race or 
color. In an early debate on the merit system in 
the public service he said: — 

The gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Williams] 
complains that in his State there were actually in the 
postal service eleven colored people, or to use his forc- 
ible if not elegant language, "eleven ignorant niggers" 
in the State of Mississippi were employed in the Rail- 
way Mail Service. 

To my mind one of the glories of this civil-service 
reform is that it does not regard a man's color, but that 
to rich and poor, to black and white, to high and low, 
it applies impartially the same test. It does not look to 
see what political boss is behind a man, or what pull 
he has, or what mav be his circumstances in life, but 
it regards him and his qualifications, and aims to give 
him the place he is competent to fill. 

In 1893, in discussing a bill which provided 
that in certain classes of cases the facts should be 
established " by at least one crediblewitness other 
than Chinese," he said: — 

Truth knows no color. Let the court find it as best 
it may. It is a most heathenish principle to write in 



Samuel W. McCall 

our laws that our courts shall shut their eyes to facts 
because of a man's nationality or the color of his skin. 

In the debate in the House, in 191 1, on a 
resolution to abrogate our treaty with Russia 
because of discrimination against American citi- 
zens of Jewish descent, he said: — 

My sympathies are with this brilliant race. Centuries 
ago its nationality was destroyed in Palestine. It was 
dispersed over the face of the globe. The laws of almost 
all nations have discriminated against it ; and yet it has 
shown such marvelous vitality that it has made for it- 
self a proud place. It is to-day one of the most power- 
ful elements in great States in this Union. I should be 
willing to take any steps in reason to protect the rights 
of such a people. 

While Mr. McCall was in Congress, he was 
not a frequent participant in the debates. Aside 
from the formal presentation of the reports of 
committees over which he presided, he seldom 
addressed the House, even briefly, more than a 
half-dozen times in any one session. Indeed, 
throughout one session when he was chairman 
of an investigating committeeof the House, he did 
not take the floor at all. It was the high quality 
of his speeches, the thorough knowledge upon 
which they were based, the sound and independ- 
ent judgment which they exhibited, as well as 
their eloquent and graceful language, which 
232 



Mr. McCall 

gained public recognition. His speeches also are 
distinguished by the fact that they usually dealt 
with the tundamental. His discussions of public 
questions well exemplify Lord Macaulay's ob- 
servation that in the administration of govern- 
ment there are two kinds of wisdom, — the 
highest wisdom which is conversant with great 
principles of political philosophy and a lower 
wisdom which meets daily exigencies by dailv 
expedients. In his first speech on the tariff he 
examined the fundamental principle on which 
the whole policy of protection is based. In his 
discussion of the amendments made by the Sen- 
ate to revenue bills sent to it from the House, 
he concerned himself less with the details of the 
amendments than with the constitutional right 
of the Senate to make any alterations which 
affected the tundamental character of the bill. In 
his view the power over revenue bills vested in the 
House by the Constitution was something more 
than a right to adopt an enacting clause to which 
the Senate might attach any sort of bill that it 
chose. Likewise, in the debates upon the Philip- 
pines, he emphasized less the transitory elements 
of the problem — the economic effect upon the 
United States, the expense which their posses- 
sion would entail, the possible advantages to the 
Philippines — than the fundamental question as 

233 



Samuel W. McCall 

to whether a country whose national existence is 
based upon the principle that all just government 
derives its powers from the consent of the gov- 
erned, can be justified in imposing its rule upon 
an unwilling population. Throughout the debate 
upon the regulation of railway rates, he insisted 
that the question as to what is a reasonable rate 
is essentially a judicial question. The many de- 
cisions which have since been handed down to 
the effect that the rate decrees of a railway com- 
mission cannot be made final and that a carrier 
cannot be deprived of its right to a judicial re- 
view of the action of a commission, go far to 
sustain Mr. McCall's contention, while the in- 
congruity of the Government's fixing the price 
of what the railways have to sell while it makes 
no attempt to fix the price of what they have to 
buy is forcing itself more and more upon the 
attention of students of the railway problem. It 
is this habit of exact analysis and of resolving a 
question into its fundamental elements which is 
Mr. McCall's most prominent characteristic as 
a debater. 

An examination of his speeches in Congress 
will show that his discussions were usually con- 
fined to those questions the decision of which he 
felt was likely to affect our whole system of gov- 
ernment. On the great mass of petty bills which 
234 



Mr. McCall 

come before Congress he seldom had anything 
to say. He devoted himself to the study ot such 
questions as free silver, the merit system of ap- 
pointments, the policy of protection, imperial- 
ism, the regulation of railway rates, and the con- 
stitutional relations of the States with the Federal 
Government and of the various branches of the 
Government with one another. And he is carry- 
ing the same principle of selection into the dis- 
charge of his duties as Governor. Shortly before 
his inauguration, he said to a friend, " I don't 
want to be a mere routine Governor. I want 
to accomplish something substantial for the 
State." 

Religion is often the key to much of a man's 
character, but if he is as little inclined as is Mr. 
McCall to speak of those things which concern 
himself most intimately, it is a phase of his life 
which is likely to be little known. So far as Mr. 
McCall's religion finds any outward expression, 
it is as a communicant of the Episcopal Church 
of which he and all his family are members. To 
his intimates it is apparent that the serenity of 
his spirit is largely due to an almost mystical con- 
fidence in the guidance of a power which shapes 
his life and brings to good result that which 
seemed at the time a defeat of his purpose. In 
his speeches and writings there arc few sentences 

235 



Samuel W. McCall 

of a distinctly religious character, but they are 
pervaded by a reverential tone which could only 
proceed from a deeply religious nature. Many 
of his discussions of public questions might well 
have had for their text, " Righteousness exalteth 
a nation." He is so impressed with the sacred- 
ness of democracy and the inalienable right of 
man to liberty that his pleas attain a solemnity 
comparable to Lincoln's Second Inaugural or to 
that of the Hebrew prophets or the Greek tra- 
gedians. Wherein such appeals to the highest 
emotions by which the conduct of man is influ- 
enced differ from appeals to religion it might be 
difficult to determine. The result is certainly 
much the same. 

In Mr. McCall's library in Winchester there 
is a picture with an interesting historv. When 
the treaty for the exclusion of the Chinese was 
pending before the Senate, Senator Hoar, to 
whom anything in the nature of racial discrimi- 
nation before the law was abhorrent, vigorously 
opposed its ratification, but on the final vote, he 
found himself absolutely alone. He evidently 
felt the isolation of his position, and in reaching 
out for sympathy he instinctively turned to his col- 
league in the lower House. In the evening of the 
day that the treaty was ratified, the Senator's mes- 
senger appeared at Mr. McCall's home bearing 
236 



Mr. McCall 

a beautiful engraving of Trumbull's well-known 
paintincT, " The Signing of the Declaration of 
Independence." On the margin was written, 
"The Hon. Samuel W. McCall, semper fidelis, 
with the affectionate regards of George F. Hoar." 



THE END 



INDEX 



Adams, Charles Francis, 41. 
Adams, John, 59. 
Adams, John Quincy, 60. 
Aiken, John A., 11, 13. 
Andrew, John A., 4, 27, 219. 

Bankruptcy, 64-66. 

Barrett, William E., 13. 

Bartlett, Paul, 32. 

Blaine, James G., 139. 

Brooks, Phillips, 226. 

Bryan, W.J. , 53, 98, 129. 

Bryce, Lord, 68, 147, 189, 108. 

Burke, Edmund, 84, 210. 

Burnham, D. H., 32. 

*' Business of Congress, " 197. 

Cannon, Joseph G., 34-37- 
Carlisle, John G., I16. 
Centralization of power, 81-89, 

97- 

Chase, Dr. George C, 9. 

Chase, Salmon P., I 73. 

Choate, Rufus, 173. 

Civil service reform, 57-64, 23 1. 

Clay, Henry, 61. 

Cleveland, Grover, 47, 48, 53, 95, 
loi, 116, 1 18, 146. 

Constitution of the United States, con- 
struction of, 80, 83, 90; amend- 
ment of, 89, 97, 99 ; restraints of, 
89, 94, 100, 106—08. 

Constitutional relations of the Federal 
Government and the States, 5 S~S 7» 
69, 81-90, 93, 97, 99. 

Corrupt practices acts, 24. 

Cuba, relations with, 116, 145, 167- 
71. 

Curtis, George William, 57. 



Dartmouth "Anvil," 13-16. 

Dartmouth College, 9, 1 1 ; presi- 
dency of, 172-88 J growth of, 173 ; 
in the Civil War, 175 ; develop- 
ment under President Tucker, 1 75 ; 
Webster celebration, 209. 

Demagogues, danger of, 94. 

Democracy, 227-32. 

Dtngley Act, 122, 128, 129, I 34. 

Draper, General William F., 214. 

Eastman, Edwin G., 11. 
Eliot, Charles W., 40, 77. 
Elkins Act, 72. 
Emancipation, 193-95, 197. 
Episcopal Church, 235. 
Everett, William, 52. 

Federal Government, supremacy of, 

99. 
Fine Arts, National Commission on, 

Franklin, Benjamin, 96, 189, 209. 
Freeman, E. A., 93. 
French, Daniel Chester, 32. 

Garfield, James A., lOI. 
Gladstone, W. E., 90. 
Gold standard, 50, 51, 54. 
Grant, U. S., 96. 

Hamilton, Alexander, 209, 212-14. 
Hanna, M. A., 129. 
Harris<>n, Benjamin, 57, 1 1 6, 158. 
Hay, John, 189, 191. 
Hepburn Act, 72-76. 
Higginson, Henry L., 180. 
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 187, 
205. 



Index 



Hoar, George F., 236. 

Holmes, Justice O. W., 113. 

House ot" Representatives, rearrange- 
ment of its hall, 68; right to orig- 
inate revenue bilb, 100—03; power 
in abrogation of treaties, 103-06. 

Illinois, life in, 3-8, 191. 
Income Tax Amendment, 97-99. 
IngersoU, Robert G., 116. 
Initiative, 109, 1 11. 
Interstate Commerce Act, 71. 
Ireland, 160. 

Jackson, Andrew, 59, 60, 62. 
James, William, 205. 
Jefferson, Thomas, 59, 62. 
Jews, protection of, 232. 
John Brown's raid, 205-08. 
Judiciary, independence of, 95, 112. 

Kimball-Union Academy, 16, 17. 

Labor, regulation of hours of, 69. 
Legal tender notes, proposal to tax, 

55-57. 
Lewis, Homer P., 12. 
Liberty, 85, 86, 89, 91, 93, 112, 

161, 208, 224-27. 
" Liberty of Citizenship," 208, 224. 
Lieber, Francis, 85. 
Lincoln, Abraham, 81, 193, 197, 

209, 222, 227. 
Lincoln Memorial, 33, 220. 
Lodge, H. C, 190. 

McCall, Henry, 2. 

McCall, Peter, I. 

JVIcCall, Samuel, Jr., I. 

MtCall, Samuel Walker, birth, 2 ; 
removal to Illinois, 3 ; enters Mt. 
Carroll Seminary, 8 ; enters New 
Hampton Academy, 8 ; impres- 
sions of New England, 8 ; enters 
Dartmouth College, 9, II; elected 
to Phi Beta Kappa, 11 ; member 
of Kappa Kappa Kappa, 12; in 

240 



debating, 12; in boating, 12; in 
college journalism, 13-16; teacher 
in Kimball-Union Academy, 16; 
in a night school, 17; study and 
practice of law, 19 ; life of Napo- 
leon, 19; articles on Sumner and 
Choate, 20; " Plea for a Strong 
Navy," 20; elected to the Lcgis- 
bture of Massachusetts, 22, 23, 
26; author of poor debtors' law, 
22; member of Republican National 
Convention, 23; editor of " Boston 
Advertiser," 23; author of corrupt 
practices acts, 24, 26; controversy 
with Supreme Judicial Court, 24; 
law for protection of sailors' wages, 
25; appointed Ballot Law Commis- 
sioner, 26; elected to Congress, 28; 
independence, 28; large majorities, 
29, 30; election of 1 904, 29; mem- 
ber of Committee on Elections, 31; 
member of Committee on the Judici- 
ary, 32; author of law establishing 
National Commission on the Fine 
Arts, 32; memberofthe Lincoln Me- 
morial Commission, 33; member of 
Committee on Ways and Means, 
33, 122; member of investigating 
committees, 33 ; relations with 
Speaker Cannon, 34-37; retires 
from the House, 37; candidacv for 
the Senate, 39-41; farewell address 
to the House, 42; candidate for 
Governor, 44; renomination, 45; 
election, 46; repeal of the Silver 
Purchase Act, 47-53; defense of 
the public credit, 54; taxation of 
legal tender notes, 55-57; uniform- 
ity of State laws, 57; civil service 
reform, 57-64; bankruptcy, 64- 
68; rearrangement of hall of House 
of Rcpresentives, 68; constitutional 
amendment to secure uniform hours 
of labor, 69; railway rate legislation, 
70-76; performing the functions of 
an opposition, 77; constitutional dis- 
cussions, 78-114; the policy of pro- 



Index 



tection, 1 1 ^-44; the warwith Spain 
and its problems, 14^-7'; presi- 
dency of Dartmouth College, I 72- 
88 { as a man of lettcn, 189-216; 
icholarly tastes, 21S; appreciation 
of art, 119-22; idealism, 212; dcp- 
recatci sectionalism, 223; devotion 
to liberty, 224-27; an individualist 
and a democrat, 227-52; opposes 
race discriminations, 23 1; speeches 
devoted to fundamental principles, 
132-34; a communicant of the 
Episcopal Church, 235; gift from 
Senator Hoar, 236. 

McCall, Mrs. Samuel W., lo. 

McCall, William, I. 

McKinley, William, 139, 146, 147, 
149, 150. 

McKinley Act, 134. 

Mcservcy, Dr., 9. 

Monroe Doctrine, 155. 

Montesquieu, 95. 

Morrow, J. B., 35. 

Navy, plea for a strong, 20. 
Negroes, attitude toward, 18 1, 231. 
"Newspaper Press," 199—203. 
New Vork " Nation," 132. 
New York "Sun," 130, 181. 
New Vork "Times," 39. 

Olmsted, F. L., 32. 

Olney, Richard, 179. 

Oregon, direct government in, no. 

Parkman, Henry, 23. 

Parsons, Frank N., 12, 13. 

Payne Act, 132-34. 

Phi Beta Kappa, 11, 199. 

Philippines, 149, 150-5-, 1 62-66, 

^33- 
Poor debtors, act for relief of, 22. 
Porto Rico, 149, 157-61. 
Powers, Samuel L., 12, 13, f, 18. 
Preparrvlness, 20. 
Protection, policy of, i 15-44. 
Public opinion, 84. 



Quimby, Charles E., 12. 

Railways, reguLition of, 70-76, 234. 
Rand, Profes*>r, 9. 
Randall, Samuel J., 1 1 6. 
Recall, 112. 

Reciprocity, 134; with Cuba, 135- 
37, 168-71 ; with Canada, 137- 

44- 
Reed, Thomas B., 146,192, 195-97. 
Referendum, no. III. 
Religion, 235. 
Revenue bills, authority of the House 

over, 100-03. 
Rhodes, James Ford, 1 81. 
Roberts, Brigham H., exclusion of 

from the House, 106-08. 
Roosevelt, Theodore, 29, 30, 58, 72, 

III, 189. 
Root, Elihu, 108, 208. 

Sailors, act for protection of, 25. 

" Scholar in Politics a Conservative," 

203-05. 
Schurr, Carl, 57. 
Senate and House, relations between, 

100-06. 
Senators, popular election of, 99. 
Ship subsidies, 66-68. 
Silver Purchase Act, repeal of, 47- 

53' 
Smith, Goldwin, 187. 
Spin, war with, 128, 145-71, 

222. 
Springfield "Republican," 41. 
States, rights and powers of, 81. 
Stevens, Thaddcus, 173, 192. 
Storey, MtH)rfield, 182. 
Streetcr, Frank S., 12, 183. 

Taft, WUliam H., 139, 166, 208. 
Tariff, revision of, 117, 129, 13 1. 
Thompson, Ella Esther (Mn. Mc- 

CaU), 10. 
Thompson, Sumner Shaw, 10. 
Treaties, making and abrogation of, 

104-06. 

241 



Index 



Tucker, William J., 175, 176, i Washington " Post," 154. 



177- 
Uniform state laws, 57. 

Washington, George, 59, 62, 89, 
95, 120, 197, 209, 212-14. 



Webster, Daniel, 11, 61, 173,209- 

12. 
Wilson, William L., 117. 
Wilson Bill, 117, 118, 122, 

134- 
Woodford, Stewart L., 146, 147. 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHLSETTS 
U . S . A 



